COEUR d’ALENE — It’s 136 years old and it still looks good.

The Fort Sherman Chapel has stood the test of time as Coeur d’Alene’s oldest church, school, library and meeting hall.

Now the chapel is getting a new roof. The old roof, which was put on 26 years ago, rotted and had moss growing all over it.

The building owned by the Museum of North Idaho is a nationally registered historic place, which means any construction or repairs on it have to stay as close to its original form as possible.

“Because it’s a historical site, we need to put cedar shingles on it, which is what it had when it was built,” said Alex Feierabend, one of the roofers working on the chapel. “The cedar is expensive and shingles take a lot longer to install, so cost of labor goes up.”

The new roof will cost the Museum of North Idaho $32,000.

The museum has already received a grant from the Idaho Heritage Trust for $7,500 and donations from Kootenai Electric and various individuals that total $2,100. The museum hopes to get more donations to cover the remaining $20,400.

The Fort Sherman Chapel is one of the three remaining original buildings from Fort Sherman. It still has its original old organ pipes in it, though all the interior has been replaced, such as the pews and the alter.

The building is still used today. Many weddings have been held there, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and other events and meetings. Money from these events goes to the maintenance and preservation of the chapel.

“It’s a treasure, this building,” said local historian Robert Singletary. “We don’t want to over use it, but we want to still be able to use it.”

Singletary said the chapel played a very important role at Fort Sherman, because it was the school building for the children of soldiers, as well as citizens of the forming town of Coeur d’Alene.

When asked why it is important to preserve historical sites, he said “ … in a way, had there not been Fort Sherman, there may not have been Coeur d’Alene. We preserve these buildings because it’s part of our history; it’s part of our scrapbook so we can remember what happened and where we came from.”

Donations for the roof construction on the Fort Sherman Chapel can be made to the Museum of North Idaho at P.O. Box 812, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83816. For more information, call the museum at (208) 664-3448 or email museum director Dorothy Dahlgren at dd@museumni.org.