|
First United Methodist
First United
Methodist
The congregation built
the church, which was the first in Shreveport, in 1845.1Henry
R. T. Cratch, a Shreveport carpenter, was contracted on
November 19, 1844 to construct the frame building on
Market Street.2 The total cost of
construction amounted to about $1,000.3
The church was
forty-feet-long, thirty-five-feet wide, and
sixteen-feet-high. Four windows on each side and two
additional windows at the pulpit end lighted the
interior.4
Caddo Parish held a total membership of 382 with two
Sunday schools in 1847.5
In January of the following year, the Shreveport
District was created at the Louisiana Conference held in
Minden. William Doty became presiding elder of this
district. The Shreveport Church was also declared a
full-fledged church.6
ROBERT
JAMES HARP
Robert James Harp was born in 1829 in Tennessee as the
youngest of four children. Orphaned at the age of seven,
he was a hard worker on his foster father’s farm. He
spent his nights reading books, striving for a good
education. At the age of fourteen, he felt called to
preach and was granted his license. He served two
circuits in the Memphis Conference in 1844 and then was
transferred to Louisiana to serve the Caddo circuit.
When the Shreveport Church was established, he became
the first pastor, serving from 1847 until 1848.7At
the age of eighteen, this new pastor combated liquor and
prostitution.8 After his two years in
Shreveport, the limit for a minister at that time, he
moved to Alexandria, Baton Rouge, and finally New
Orleans, where he met and married Agnes Pennington in
1865.9 He returned to Shreveport in 1887, and
in 1891 he became the presiding elder of the Shreveport
District, a position which he held until 1895. Jordan
Street Methodist Church and the church in Greenwood also
saw him as a pastor in 1896. He left for Lake Charles
and Jeanerette, but returned again to Shreveport in 1901
and became pastor of Texas Avenue Methodist Church,
which later became Lakeview Methodist Church after the
congregation moved to Cross Lake. He later served in
Mooringsport and
Ida, but his final assignment was the
Shreveport City Mission in 1906. He founded his last
church, the Creswell Street Methodist Church, which
later became the Noel Memorial Methodist Church. He
retired in December of 1908, making Shreveport his home
for himself and his family. While at the home of his
daughter, Bertha Harp Whitworth, Harp died. He, his
wife, and two of their daughters, were buried in
Greenwood Cemetery in Shreveport within two miles of the
first site of the First United Methodist Church. In
1994 the First United Methodist Church erected an
upright marker for the Harp graves, which are located
near the cemetery entrance.10
EDWARDS
STREET CHURCH PLANS
The
Shreveport Church congregation desired a new location
for their church and bought several lots on Edwards
Street.11
The church was chartered in 1859 and the name Edwards
Street Methodist Episcopal Church was chosen for the new
location.12 In 1850 the Methodist Church had
sixty-nine members, fifty-one whites and eighteen
blacks, who undoubtedly lived nearby.13 The
Civil War and then the
1873 yellow fever epidemic
weakened the congregation and cancelled the new church’s
construction.14 The Presbyterians bought the
lots and built their church on the site.15
In
1851 Linus Parker, who was only twenty-two-years-old
when he arrived in Shreveport, became pastor of the
Shreveport church. Parker went on to be elected bishop,
the first former pastor of the Shreveport Church to do
so.16
The church
was moved to the southwest corner of Market and Fannin
Streets under the direction of pastor Samuel B. Surratt
in 1859.17
In 1861 the church had seventy-nine whites and eighty
blacks with a fifty-member Sunday school.18
At that time the church had more black members than
white, and although they were segregated, they knelt
together at the communion rail.19
Four years later the
church boasted a membership of 131 whites and 136
blacks. In 1866 sixty-six feet were added to the
Shreveport Methodist Church building at a cost of $2,700
because of the growing congregation and Sunday school.20
In the 1870’s a parsonage was constructed on the
northwest corner of Jordan Street and Fairfield Avenue.21
In 1873
the city was stricken with a yellow fever epidemic,
which wiped out twenty percent of the church’s
membership.22
John Wilkinson, then
pastor of Shreveport Methodist Church, was among the
priests and pastors who tirelessly aided the sick and
dying. Wilkinson once recorded that he had buried five
people out of a family of six.23
GOTHIC
CHURCH
In 1880
the church had a membership of 179, a nice improvement
from the 123 members remaining after the yellow fever
epidemic only seven years earlier.24
With the appointment of John T. Sawyer as pastor in the
following year, the church reached a turning point.
Sawyer, along with the bishop, felt that it was time the
congregation had a proper church structure, as the
Baptists and Presbyterians had already erected their
soaring churches.25 In 1882 the congregation
bought two lots on the western edge of downtown
Shreveport, facing east on Common Street at the end of
Texas Street, from Jacob Hoss for $1,700.26
Most of the building materials were manufactured in
Shreveport, but the window frames and glass came from
elsewhere.27
The
cornerstone was laid on January 8, 1883.28 The
foundation and first floor was completed by 1883, and a
temporary roof was placed over the completed section.29
The congregation then moved to this site from Market
Street in 1884 and worshipped in the completed section.30
The remainder of the Gothic church was completed in
1887.31
The structure measured eighty-five-feet from the base to
the roof, with the fifteen-foot-square tower rising to a
height of 165-feet. The dedication was held on September
29, 1889.32
PRESENT
CHURCH
In the
first year that G. E. Cameron served as pastor, it was
decided that a new church structure was needed.33
On September 28, 1913 the church, which had been
completed for a cost of $750,000, was dedicated.34
There were no stained glass windows in the sanctuary
when it was first consecrated. Four stained glass
windows were added later. One of them is in memory of
Ida Lee Chapman, a little girl who made the first
donation to the building fund for the construction of
the new church. She gave her only silver dollar, only to
die suddenly two weeks later.35 The
nine-year-old’s silver dollar is encased in the
cornerstone of the church.36 The last window
was added in 1950.37 The façade of the church
resembled that of a Greek temple with six two-story
columns rising from square bases along the steps.
LANDMARKS 1920's-Present
The
church grew with its new pastor George Sexton. For the
first time in the church’s history, it held over 1,000
members.38
The 1920’s saw the
church’s involvement in the community. The openly
Methodist-supported Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. moved to new
buildings and were operated by members of the Methodist
Church. The Methodist City Mission Board established a
home for working girls, known as the Jubilee Inn. It was
moved in 1946 and renamed Business Girls’ Inn. In 1974
the Presbyterian Church bought it and operates it as
Providence House, a housing shelter for homeless
families.39
D. L.
Dykes first came to First United Methodist Church in
December of 1945 and served as the associate past or
until September 1948. He left the church, returning in
February of 1955 as the pastor. The church was
remodeled twice under his authority. The Performing Arts
Theatre, Hunter Activities Building, Couch Chapel,
television station building, and education building were
all constructed under Rev. Dr. Dykes.
40
In 1943
and 1944 the education buildings at the rear were
constructed. The flanking buildings were added in 1964.41
In the late 1960’s the church officially became known as
the First United Methodist Church.
42
The
steeple was
added in 1972 to replace the neon cross that had
formerly
topped the church, and the style changed from
Greek Classical to Colonial.43
References
Back to Top
|
