WISCASSET, Maine — You see it across the field when you drive onto the grounds of the Wiscasset Speedway.
Improbably, the roof and steeple of a small church rise above the grass, a few dozen yards from the path to the grandstand.
The church is tiny—seven feet long by four-and-a-half feet wide—but is tall enough to comfortably stand inside. There are two windows, a slim altar, and a chair. There's also a Bible, just in case one is needed.
Inside the little church, there's a photo to remember Edna Verney. She was the force that led track owners Richard and Vanessa Jordan to have the church built.
"I love it," Bill Pierce said, a carpenter and former racer who built the little church. "I think it's great, it fits the track perfectly where it's sitting. A great tribute."
The church is a tribute to Edna, Richard Jordan’s aunt, but also to an unusual piece of Wiscasset history.
Just a couple of miles from the track, in 1958, Rev. Lewis West built Wiscasset’s first tiny church.
"The reason he built it is he was involved with big churches for over four decades. He retired here from Boston and just wanted to be connected to God's work, and that’s why he built it," Edna’s granddaughter, Paige Verney, explained.
That little church became a tourist attraction, and Paige said Edna loved it.
"My grandmother, she really talked about it all the time. I think because it was just kind of peculiar and something out of the ordinary. It was kind of a landmark, people from all over would come to see it."
Postcards from that time referred to the tiny building as "The Smallest Church in the World." Paige said at one point, the Guinness Book of World Records listed the Wiscasset church.
Unfortunately, the building didn’t last. It fell victim to time, weather, and vandalism, and all that remains now are the flat stones from its foundation.
That’s where the link to auto racing came in.
Edna and her family enjoyed the races, according to Paige, and Edna even won a Powder Puff Derby race in 1969, the track’s second year. Her nephew Richard raced at one time and bought the track in 2012.
Edna then apparently began pressing him to build a replica of the "Smallest Church" and place it at the track.
"She had pictures of dimensions of it," Paige explained, "and even had someone in mind to build it: Bill Pierce."
Pierce said Richard couldn’t say no, and with Edna in declining health, they began building. She passed away before the church was done, but now it stands at the track, close to the small, old cemetery that also occupies a piece of the landscape.
The church is dedicated to Edna’s memory.
"I love it," Paige said. "I’m sad she couldn’t be here to see her dream fulfilled, but I know she’d be happy. We miss you, Mammy."
The original smallest church didn’t even have a door, meaning it was open to the weather, which may have contributed to its demise. The new one has a hand-made door, but it isn’t locked.
Will people use it?
"That’s what we all hope," builder Bill Pierce said, adding that he would like to eventually see someone get married in the little church.
"There were, if I remember, 10 weddings in the original," Pierce said.
And it didn’t even have a race track for parking.