Mud Bay Indian Shaker Church
Mud Bay Indian Shaker Church is the first church built by the Indian Shaker Church.
The first Shaker Indian church, also called the "mother church", was built 1885 near Olympia, then the capital of Washington Territory. The structure was built on a shoulder of the Black Hills above Mud Bay, at the southern end of Eld Inlet, an arm of Puget Sound. It was near the homes of Louis "Mud Bay Louie" Yowaluch and his brother Sam "Mud Bay Sam" Yowaluch, co-founders of the church, first and second "headman"s respectively. Mud Bay Sam was the first Bishop after incorporation of Shaker Indian Church in 1910.
The original church was oriented in an east-west direction, in a manner that would set the pattern for subsequent church architecture. The earliest several churches were about plain wooden buildings with shingle roofs, stout wooden doors and floors. The Mud Bay church was rebuilt in 1910.
