By 1887, the congregation of St. Paul's had outgrown its second building and commissioned the Philadelphia firm of Purcell and Fry to design this brick Gothic Revival church. In 1916, when additional space was needed, local architect Edward Hay Walker (1864–1953) was hired to design an addition to the west. His Gothic Revival design, with its stepped buttresses, cross-braced entrance overhangs, bracketing, and pointed arches, seamlessly blends with the original building. The addition changed the church sanctuary from the traditional form to a much larger, Akron plan layout. Previously, in 1910, Walker had designed the First Christian Church at 139 E. Main Street, a substantial, neoclassical domed building. Walker had an architectural practice in Somerset spanning nearly fifty years.