English: Trinity Lutheran Church and School, 146 Reserve Road, West Seneca, New York, December 2022. With this 1954-vintage design, the Buffalo architecture firm of Shelgren & Whitman eschew their more typical Colonial Revival style in favor of a handsome if by then somewhat passé Late Gothic aesthetic doubtless best exemplified by the trio of windows on the façade whose slenderness and pointed arches draw the eyes upward as called for by the style. Note also the subtly rusticated Gibbs surround and engraved stone panels underneath. Interestingly, the main entrance is contained in the base of the stubby tower that's placed almost at the rear of the building: a set of double doors are recessed behind a segmental compound arch and surrounded by a stone enframement with cast iron sconces. In lieu of a spire, the tower's flat roof is crowned by a stone parapet with regularly spaced divots of mortar that suggest crenellations. Belying the comparative newness of the building, Trinity is actually among the oldest Lutheran congregations on the Niagara Frontier, founded in 1849 by a small community of German immigrants who farmed a rural tract south of Buffalo that had until a few years prior been part of the Seneca Nation's Buffalo Creek Reservation. An early affiliate of the church's Missouri Synod, Trinity's emphasis on Christian education began early in its history: its school, founded in 1851, was among the first in the Missouri Synod and is today the oldest educational institution of any kind in the Town of West Seneca, as well as the only remaining Lutheran-operated Christian school in Buffalo's southern suburbs. The same year, they purchased the plot where the present building now stands and constructed a church (which shared space with the school until a dedicated building for the latter was constructed in 1858), then replaced it with a larger structure in 1870 which in turn was incorporated into the current building, planning for which began in the 1940s when the postwar wave of suburbanization led to a sharp increase in the membership rolls. Ground was broken for the $180,000 structure in November 1953, the cornerstone laid the following April, and dedication ceremonies celebrated the following November.