Chapel Emmanuel Railroad Car

The Chapel Emmanuel Railroad Car was one of thirteen railroad cars used as chapels in the United States starting about 1890. Seven of the cars were built by the Barney and Smith Car Company of Dayton, Ohio and travelled from town to town, mainly in the sparsely populated western states and territories, under the direction of the American Baptist Publication Society.

In 1893 the Chapel Emmanuel car was the second car built for the Baptists and was the longest serving, being retired about 1938. In the 1950s it was sold to a salvage business, Brandt Engineering Co., in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who stripped it of metal and used it for storage. By 1976 the car was given to Prairie Village, a museum near Madison, South Dakota, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.