RIDGWAY — An Elk County official said work will soon begin to mend Decker’s Chapel in St. Marys after a harsh winter and continued erosion left the 160-year-old religious tribute standing on a wing and a prayer.

Commissioner Dan Freeburg on Tuesday said a game plan for fixing the ailing, nationally recognized historic site is expected by today. It comes after inspections by a local contractor to determine the extent of damage to the building’s original foundation which has all but broken away.   

Freeburg said the repairs are likely straightforward, consisting of raising the structure, removing the damaged foundation, rebuilding it and installing proper drainage at the site. 

If all goes as planned, Freeburg said the chapel, which closed recently due to associated safety concerns, could reopen by the summer.   

“It looks favorable to have a complete restoration of the foundation completed and the chapel open to the public, in better shape than it has been in years, early this summer,” Freeburg said after Tuesday’s Elk County Commissioners meeting in which the chapel was discussed.  

Freeburg estimates the cost of repairs at between $10,000 and $12,000. 

But where the money will come from remains to be seen, as the chapel does not generate its own revenue. 

Freeburg expects officials with the city of St. Marys, who agreed on Monday to help in the repair process, to submit a grant application to the Stackpole Hall Foundation, a St. Marys-based philanthropy, to help cover the costs. 

The grant application will be filed on behalf of the chapel’s non-profit owners at the Elk County Historical Society. The amount of the grant is not yet known and private fundraisers are also reportedly planned. 

Financial support has yet to be pledged by either the city or county, although both have expressed no shortage of moral support. 

“We’re 100 percent on board,” Freeburg said of the repair efforts as well as the county and city’s promise to commit expertise and grant writers to expedite the process. “This (chapel) is a very important little place. It’s something to be proud of.” 

Once known as the smallest church in the United States, Decker’s Chapel was built in 1856 by Michael Decker, reportedly following a “miraculous recovery from a fall,” an online post reads.  

The building, roughly the size of a large garden shed, came into the hands of the county’s historical society some 130 years later, before making its way onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.  

But the recently discovered damage left the roadside attraction’s doors closed, sealed with caution tape. 

Elk County Historical Society executive director Mary Kalinowski said in its current condition the chapel is potentially unsafe for visitors.  

On Monday, she told St. Marys City Council during its meeting that the chapel is “literally falling into the ground … The foundation is just starting to crumble.”

In addressing the commissioners’ meeting Tuesday, Kalinowski confirmed the building’s original fieldstone foundation has shifted following a harsh winter and continued erosion activity at the site.

St. Marys Mayor Bob Howard said during the same meeting the city and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation determined runoff from their adjacent roadways had not contributed to the chapel’s erosion problem, adding they believe a lack of adequate drainage at the low-lying site is to blame. 

Also on Tuesday, the commissioners awarded more than $60,000 in Marcellus Shale drilling fees for everything from the repair of a flood-damaged little league field to the purchase of bulletproof vests for the county’s sheriff’s department. 

Commissioners Freeburg and Janis Kemmer approved the shares of county Act 13 impact fee and Act 13 Legacy Fund earnings as part of a bi-annual awards cycle. 

The amounts and corresponding projects are as follows: $5,000 for the purchase of sewer line cameras in both St. Marys and Johnsonburg; $10,000 for the paving of Church Street in Benezette; $8,182 for the Bennetts Valley Ambulance service’s purchase of radio equipment and pagers; $4,000 to Penn Highlands Elk in St. Marys for drug outreach in local schools; $10,000 to partially fund the purchase of a generator for St. Marys’ future Emergency Operations Center; $4,708 to replace an aged computer scanner used for document recordation and storage by the county’s prothonotary; and $1,600 for the county sheriff’s department to purchase bulletproof vests for members. 

The projects total more than $48,000 in awards. 

Acting sheriff Theresa Merritt said after the meeting that she, like other awardees, applied for the grant funding. She said the money is roughly half of the entire amount needed to supply all of her deputies with vests, adding five have been purchased so far and five more are still needed. 

The commissioners also approved an additional $15,000 in awards of Act 13 Legacy Funds, shares earmarked for recreational projects, with $5,000 going to the Ridgway Little League and $10,000 to the Johnsonburg Little League to repair fields destroyed in near record level flooding last May. 

The county’s Act 13 grant system was established with a corresponding increase in area natural gas drilling last year. The fees are collected by the state on Marcellus Shale gas wells drilled in the county and then returned to the county for a host of designated uses. 

It has meant hundreds of thousands of dollars for the county since the program began roughly three years ago. 

The commissioners said they chose to distribute a portion of the county’s cut to municipalities, some of whom receive their own impact fee shares, as a means of sharing the wealth. Roughly one-third of the county’s Act 13 shares have been redistributed to its municipalities thus far, the commissioners estimate. The remainder is put toward county projects or saved in case the drilling fees were to suddenly dry up. 

The next commissioners’ meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. April 21 in the courthouse annex building in Ridgway. 

Commissioner June Sorg was not present at Tuesday’s meeting.