Antelope Community Church The town of Antelope originated as a stage station on The Dalles-Canyon City Road about one and a half miles northeast of the present location in the early 1860s. When the road was rerouted in 1881, the town moved with it. Among the people stopping at this growing rural town were itinerant pastors who passed through and held services for those who would listen. The town grew rapidly, as freight wagons carrying wool out of the region passed through, and then homesteaders arrived. By the 1890s, a group of Antelope residents raised enough money to build a church, and the Antelope Church was completed by 1897. Initially the church was administered by the Methodist-Episcopal church, but it was used by several Protestant denominations, including Baptists and Episcopalians. At the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, the Methodists engaged a resident pastor, George Rustin Morehead. In addition, according to Eastern Oregon Episcopal records, the date of the first Episcopal service was 1901. The Antelope Church was considered a preaching station served by Episcopal ministers and the bishop, Robert Paddock, irregularly. The congregation grew enough to be considered an unorganized mission in the Eastern Oregon Missionary District. In the ensuing decades, Episcopal ministers continued to visit the Antelope church. The ministers conducted the regular church services and expanded the flock with baptisms, even as the Missionary District changed over to a new bishop, Bishop Remington. Between 1928 and 1932, while the Rev. Richardson was the rector in The Dalles, he included Antelope as part of his ministry. Also in 1928, eight Church Army men arrived in the Missionary District, and visited the church in Antelope in their evangelism tour during the month of September together with stops in Shaniko and Madras. Enough Episcopalians attended in the 1930s that a women’s guild was organized as of 1932, and the church was known as St. Timothy’s to them. During his 1936 “Pilgrimage of Witness” tour, Antelope was included on Bishop Remington’s stops along with The Dalles and Shaniko. The bishop ensured Episcopal services continued at the church, including communion and burials. By the 1940s, the United Methodist Church was unable to continue the upkeep on the original building. But members of this Antelope Community Church wanted the church to continue enough to raise funds and bought it from the Methodists. Although small in number, a congregation of about eight to ten Episcopalians continued to gather in this church and was faithfully served by the rector from St. Paul’s, The Dalles, making the trip to Antelope. When the Methodists sold the church to the community, the Antelope Community Church was unincorporated so they sought out the Antelope School board to take title in trust for the church. The building was not used by the school. In the early 1960s, the Rev. Rusty Kimsey served Antelope while he was Vicar of St. Alban’s, Redmond. Next, in the late 1960s, the Episcopal Mission of Antelope then became a mission of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Madras, conducting services once a month. It was during this time period the building’s title once again changed hands, this time from the school board to the City of Antelope in August of 1969. The community quietly continued to worship in the Antelope Church throughout the decade of the 1970s. It was not until 1981 that the congregation of this church found itself in the middle of a controversy and needed to determine the Christian future of the church building. The controversy started when a group of followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had settled in the area, buying the nearby 70,000 acre Muddy Ranch. The followers quickly spread into the town of Antelope, overtaking much of the government. With growing concern of the city being controlled by the Rajneesh, the Antelope Church members, with approval by the city, transferred the church title to the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. A year later, the Rajneesh-controlled City Council sued for return of the church to the city. The Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon entered into litigation to maintain the unbroken tradition of Christian worship to keep Antelope a church and won in the summer of 1984. As of 1982, the Rev. Warren H. Sapp and lay readers from Madras traveled to Antelope monthly, every first Sunday. The Rev. Sapp retired from Madras in 1984, but continued this ministry after his retirement. In 1986, the churches of the Episcopal Coalition of Central Oregon held a special service and potluck dinner on Easter Sunday at the Antelope Church to celebrate the renewed community effort there. The Episcopal Church held title to the church into the 1990s. The Antelope Community was free to continue worship there as before the legal interruption. For Episcopal services, the Rev. Larry Ferguson, missioner, continued including Antelope in the Episcopal Coalition of Central Oregon. In the 1990s, the lots were deeded back to the Antelope Community Church as they remain to this day. The community continues to still worship there.