Some people say the interior of the Ammansville painted church is the color of cotton candy. Others say it is the color of Pepto-Bismol. Any way you look at it, the church is a pale, rosy pink. Legend has it that an unknown itinerant artist painted the walls of Saint John. Upon completion of the work, he vanished, never to be seen again.
The present Saint John’s is the third church to be built on the property. The first church was destroyed by a hurricane in 1909. The second church burned to the ground eight years after the first one was destroyed by a hurricane. A person recalled in a phone interview working in the fields and seeing the black smoke come up from the direction of the church. Everyone dropped their farm equipment and raced to the church. Folks were able to save some of the statues, but the rest of the building was lost to the fire, which was so hot even the church bells melted. With two churches destroyed in such a short time, one would think the community of Ammansville would have given up. Yet, they began the process of planning and rebuilding almost immediately after the fire. The third church was completed in 1919.
Juneau has more than a few steep streets, and quite of few of these become too steep to remain a paved roadway. Decker Way is a downtown street which becomes a staircase to finish its run down to South Franklin St. The staircase streets are named and numbered just like the roadways, and commonly have houses along both sides. I visit them on my lunch break, and I don’t envy the folks who live there who get to carry their groceries up (or down) in all kinds of weather.
