This former Christian Science church in Michigan, designed by Leonard H. Field Jr., is a remnant of one of the stranger building booms in U.S. history.

Jackson’s Carnegie Library, a grandiose little Beaux Arts box, always seemed a bit too grandiose for a city of its size. It turns out there’s a unique reason for that, something almost out of a Hallmark movie.

Handsome and straightforward, Jackson’s First Baptist is the kind of workhorse brick church that you can find in almost every town across Michigan and the broader Midwest.