Claquato Church is a historic Methodist church building located off of WA 12 in Claquato, Washington. It is one of the oldest surviving churches in the state of Washington.

It was built in 1857 with a louvered belfry

Bell tower

A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...

 and crown steeple

Crown steeple

A crown steeple, or crown spire, is a traditional form of church steeple in which curved stone flying buttresses form the open shape of a rounded crown...

 modeled after mid-nineteenth century New England meeting houses. The pulpit and pews were hand crafted. When the county seat moved from Claquato to Chehalis

Chehalis, Washington

Chehalis is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 7,259 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Lewis County.-History:...

 in the 1870s, the church lost its congregants and stood vacant until the 1950s, when it was restored. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1973.

See also

• Oldest churches in the United States
  Oldest churches in the United States
  The designation of the oldest church in the United States requires careful use of definitions, and must be divided into two parts, the oldest in the sense of oldest surviving building, and the oldest in the sense of oldest Christian church congregation...
  
  
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Lewis County, Washington