Almost 100 years later, the dome is home

One of Pocatello’s oldest buildings has its dome restored just in time for its 100th anniversary.

Lifting more than 6,000 pounds of concrete onto the top of the historic building that has been sitting on the corner of Fifth Street is no easy task.

But Pocatello native Jeff Butler was up to the task.

“This is a completely new replica of the old one,” Butler said. “The old dome was in such poor shape, there wasn’t much left of it to salvage.”

Butler owns Butler Builders and said reconstructing the dome that sat on the top of the Greek Orthodox church was nothing short of challenging, yet rewarding.

“To have an opportunity like this certainly is a milestone in my life,” he added.

Built in 1914, the Church of the Assumption is one of the city’s oldest buildings and was added into the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Now, 99 years later, the church serves the remaining 250 greek orthodox families left in the community who once moved into Pocatello to help work on the railroad.

Building committee chairman Tim Swore said he has had vast memories growing up in the church, and the most memorable – his wedding day.

“It was June 29, no air conditioning in the church, 100-degrees outside, an hour and a half-long ceremony in a packed church – so yeah, I knew I got married,” Swore joked.

This year will mark 40 years since the day he and his wife Maria were married in that church.

But unlike the memories made in the building, the structure started to crumble.

“It was either going to get fixed or become a pile or rubble because the dome was pushing down the ceiling and the walls,” Swore said about the crumbling dome.

He said this church is one out of only two Greek Orthodox churches left in the state of Idaho, and only one out of three left in the country who still holds mass in the original building.

You can view the story tonight at six o’clock on Local News 8 and at 5:30 on Eyewitness News 3.