Red Rock Center for the Arts
church building in Fairmont, United States of America

Red Rock Center for the Arts is a historic structure located at 222 East Blue Earth Avenue, in Fairmont, Minnesota, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 18, 1988 as the First Church of Christ, Scientist. It is now owned by Martin County, which leases it to the Martin County Preservation Association.
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Fairmont, was organized October 1, 1891, and the church edifice, designed by noted Minnesota architect, Harry Wild Jones was completed in 1898. Sioux quartzite blocks quarried in Minnesota were used for the walls. The massive blocks are called red rocks because of their color and this gave rise to the present name of the building.
In 1937, First Church sold the building to the Christian Church of Fairmont which sold it in 1988 to a businessman.
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Fairmont, had another church building built at 205 Albion Avenue (between Tilden and Forest streets), which was designed by noted Chicago architect, Charles Draper Faulkner in the Colonial Revival style. That building is now the Lakeview Funeral Home.
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Fairmont, is no longer in existence.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Red Rock Center for the Arts” is church building in Fairmont, United States of America. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rock, Center and Arts, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “church building in Fairmont, United States of America” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5452677. Authority coordinates are 43.652, -94.459. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1891, 1898 and 1937.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Red Rock Center for the Arts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.