The property on the southeast corner of Third and Jackson in ""Moscow, Idaho"" has a history that is unique to the town as well as the nation. The building that stands on the corner today was built by a religion, called Psychiana. While the religion built this two story brick commercial building, that does not indicate that the building was built with religious significance. Rather this building was largely used to produce and mail the lessons of Psychiana all over the world. During the twenty five years that this religion flourished, it was the seventh largest religion in the world. The majority of the religious lessons were written and mailed off on the southeast corner of Third and Jackson in downtown Moscow.
History of the Building
editPsychiana
editThe property of 129 West Third Street consists of two lots on the third block of the western portion of downtown Moscow. The first structure on the property was a boarding house which eventually became a funeral parlor. The Short’s Funeral Chapel utilized the old boarding house until they sold the property to ""Frank B. Robinson"", who was the founder of ""Psychiana"" [1]. With the purchase of this property, Psychiana was now operating out of three building in the heart of downtown Moscow[2].
Due to the large volumes of mail that Psychiana was receiving and sending daily; the Moscow Post Office received a Class A Rating, which the post office still operates under today. As the religion began to grow, the office began to outgrow their headquarters. In the March of 1934 they moved into their “beautiful, new concrete and brick building” which adorned the lots that Robinson acquired from the Short’s two years earlier. The new building contained a air change apparatus and also had the space to handle up to three working crews, as well as the immense volumes of business [3]. Psychiana employed approximately one hundred employees, and each employee was handling up to fifty thousand pieces of mail per day. The headquarters were receiving an average of one thousand, three hundred pieces of correspondence each day [4].
Life after Psychiana
editIn January of 1949 Pearl Robinson sold the building on the corner of Third Street and Jackson to the Medical Arts and Professional Building, Inc. The building was largely a professional center until they sold it to Dr. John Ayers in January of 1977. Ayers went on to own the building until December of 1985, when he donated the property to the University of Idaho. After he donated the building, it still remained a professional center and the university sold the property in April 2011 to Turnstone, LLC. a local development company.
Historic Preservation
editThe history of the 129 West Third Street has an dense, rich history that includes housing one of the largest and only mail order religion operations in the United States. While the building was built largely for Psychiana’s operations that is a only a small and short portion of this buildings seventy eight year life span. However the first twenty five years of the buildings life were very much significant due to the fact that they represented the ideals of the American people. Frank Robinson was largely exercising his freedom of speech. Through his freedom of speech he was able to exercise a sense of entrepreneurship and possibly aid the people who were suffering during the Great Depression; this practice could have offered them hope for prosperity as well as people around the world.
This building represents the significant contribution of Psychiana. Largely because the religion is no longer in practice but helps to diversify our culture and the history of our nation. Psychiana was on a mission to preach the ideals of “health, happiness, and prosperity” which can be directly attributed to the American culture. American’s have been searching for those three ideals for years, but especially at a time of great financial strain [5].
- ^ Lillian W. Otness, The Great Good Country: A Guide to Historic Moscow and Latah County, Idaho (Idaho: Latah County Historical Society, 1983), 41-42
- ^ Frank B. Robinson, Life Story of Frank B. Robinson (Idaho: The Review Publishing Company, 1934), 158.
- ^ Frank B. Robinson, Life Story of Frank B. Robinson (Idaho: The Review Publishing Company, 1934), 154.
- ^ M. Lynne Thompson, "Psychiana: A 20th Century Revitalization Movement?" Lambda Alpha Journal 37, (2007), 42.
- ^ John H. Sprinkle, Jr., "Of Expectional Importance: The Origins of the ‘Fifty-Year Rule’ in Historic Preservation" The Public Historian Vol 37, No. 2 (Spring 2007), 97-98.