MULLAN - Sharon Miner was baptized and confirmed at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Mullan.

She and her husband, Clint, now own the historic church.

"I think it's neat. I don't feel like I own it," Sharon Miner said. "It's just been part of my life, my heritage.

"I have a lot of people ask me about it."

Miner's family was baptized and confirmed at St. Andrew's, which ceased official operations in 1993 when the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane sold it to her father, Jim Wilkerson, for $950.

One service per month was held at the small 60-person capacity church in the 1970s, she said.

"Once he bought it, they stopped (having regular services)," she said. "Dad would open for a wedding occasionally and some baptisms."

Her grandfather, Art Harwood, bought the home next to the church in 1903 or 1904, she said. Today, their yellow house next to the gray and green church is easily visible on the hill behind city hall.

"I grew up in the house," the 71-year-old Miner said.

St. Andrew's was initially used as a school for four years before being converted to a church in 1892.

Miner's grandmother, Martha "Mattie" Wheatley Harwood, went to school there.

"My family has always done the upkeep on the church," Miner said.

She got married and moved to San Diego at age 21. She lived there and in Arizona for many years before moving back to Mullan in 2007 to take care of her dad. After he died in 2008, she and Clint inherited the home and the church.

Miner's father put quite a bit of money into the church in an attempt to salvage it.

"My dad put $20,000 into the church to bring it up to code," Miner said, noting this included installing cables underneath the church and in the attic to remedy it from leaning.

It was placed onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

The Miners have installed retaining walls and railroad ties around the church to stabilize it. They have plans to paint the church this summer and would like to host weddings and other events there.

The first meeting of the Mullan Community Action Network was held in the church last October.

The church still has a pipe organ and a piano that Wilkerson had brought over from the family home.

Prayer books, vestments, candles, a chalice and various other items are still at the church, including some priest's garments hanging in the vestry.

"We still have people stop by and want to see the inside of the church and ask if we are the minister," Miner said.