First Baptist Church Archives

October 7, 2015October 7, 2015

Second Baptist Church

The small white church at the corner of South Frederick and Jefferson has a sign on the front that says “The Bridge Outreach Center.”

A Missourian Bicentennial feature by The Rev. Wesley T. Tillman in 1976 said “Although the Second Baptist Church congregation erected its present church building at 428 South Frederick in 1864, it had been organized in 1867 as the Missionary Baptist Church.

First Baptist Church became all-white

Prior to the Civil War, members of the First Baptist Church (which had been organized in 1834) who owned slaves or had black servants encouraged them to attend that church, and blacks held membership in that congregation.

After the war, however, matters changed. Some accounts say that the black Baptists decided they wanted to meet separately from the members of the “Mother Church.” Other accounts say they were “lettered out” (released from membership by being given a written statement) of the First Baptist Church, which then became all-white.

For eight or nine years, the black Baptists met in the homes of members of the congregation. Then, in 1873, a lot at the northwest corner of South Frederick and Jefferson streets was purchased from Mrs. Amanda Giboney Brown (presumably the widow of Dr. Wilson Brown, who was serving as lieutenant-governor of Missouri at his death in 1855).

Clarification

I had a little trouble sifting through Rev. Tillman’s account, so here’s how I interpret it: the First Baptist Church, the first Protestant church in Cape Girardeau, organized in 1834, originally welcomed black slaves and servants and actually allowed them to join the congregation. After the Civil War, they either chose to leave or were “lettered out” of the “Mother Church.” If I had to guess, it was probably the latter.

That’s when the small church on the corner of South Frederick and Jefferson was founded.

June 4, 2014

View from the 200 Block

I saw Tim Kincaid from Edgewater Glass doing some work on what is now the Mount Moriah Missionary Church and decided to pull into the parking lot. I got a quick look inside the church and had good intentions of going back to shoot the interior, but that will have to wait until the next trip to Cape.

It looks like Boyd Hobbs, who painted the church steeple in 1967, needs to come back to put on a new coat.

Common Pleas Courthouse

It’s early enough in the spring that there was a clear view of the Common Pleas Courthouse. When I photographed the 200 block of Broadway in the late 1960s, it was full of buildings, including the Boy Scout office. It’s all green space these days.

Lots of decks

I had never had a clear view of this house on Bellvue before. That’s quite a collection of decks and tree houses. It’s in the vicinity of Civil War Fort A overlooking the Mississippi River. Click on the photos to make them larger.

May 28, 2014May 20, 2021

Louis Houck’s Statuary Collection

Yesterday we showed the exterior of the old First Baptist Church, now Southeast Missouri State University’s Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center. Today, as promised, we’ll “go inside” to see the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall, an auditorium created from the former church’s sanctuary.

I thought the layout of the sanctuary area where the statues are displayed looked a little strange for a church. Two of my readers commented that was because the banks wanted to hedge their bets, so they required that the building be constructed so it could be used as a theater in case the church couldn’t pay off the loan. The balcony, Liz Lockhart wrote, even had space for a projection booth, should it ever be needed.

Plaster casts came from 1904 World’s Fair

The statues and other pieces of artwork were bought by Louis Houck after he saw the August Gerber’s reproductions of classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern art works displayed at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. He acquired the casts for $1,888.25.

Lauren Kellogg Disalvo’s master’s thesis, THE AURA OF REPRODUCTION: PLASTER CAST COLLECTIONS AT THE 1904 LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, contains a large section on Houck’s purchase.

Disalvo writes that Houck’s donation of the statuary stipulated that a room be dedicated to them where they could be permanently displayed. The display opened in March of 1905 with the statues in Academic Hall.

Statues damaged and destroyed

The casts remained there until 1959, when they were dispersed all over campus to make room for additional classroom space. They suffered from benign neglect over the years, with many being damaged or destroyed. One of my readers wrote that he had seen broken statues in the basement of Academic Hall when he was a student.

(For all I know, Venus de Milo might have had both her arms before SEMO got hold of her.)

Judy Crow takes up the cause

In 1975, my friend, Judy Crow, Missourian librarian, wrote a story bemoaning the fate of the Houck collection.

The result was, Disalvo writes, “the plaster casts were gathered, restored and transferred to the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. The casts remained in the museum until it relocated to the new Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. According to the museum director, Dr. Stanley Grand, the plaster casts were not included in this new museum since the new museum would focus on the archaeology, history, and fine arts of the Southeast Missouri region.”

I’m not surprised that the River Campus, which knocked down the handball courts, one of the Cape’s oldest landmarks, couldn’t find room for Houck’s donation. The irony is the university probably wouldn’t be in Cape Girardeau today had Houck not used his influence to rebuild Academic Hall after the first one burned down.

Class of 1957 raised $100,000

In 2007, the Class of 1957 raised $100,000 to have the remaining 38 surviving casts restored and moved to the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center, formerly the First Baptist Church, where they now line the walls of an auditorium area, called the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall.

The display is open to the public. Admission is free. I think Houck would approve.

Louis Houck Statuary photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

May 26, 2014May 27, 2014

First Baptist Church – Wehking Alumni Center

When I was working at The Athens Messenger with Bob Rogers, we had a technique we used when we wanted to goof off. We’d shoot something like a old general store in a decaying coal town and run a photo of the outside of the building along with a brief description and a promise “tomorrow we’ll go inside.”

I’m going to do the same thing with the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center, formerly the First Baptist Church at 926 Broadway. Tomorrow, “we’ll go inside” to see the plaster reproductions of ancient, Medieval and modern works of art that Louis Houck bought at the end of 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Third First Baptist Church

This building was really the third home of the First Baptist Church.

The original First Baptist Church was organized Aug. 13, 1834, with a membership of nine. I did a post about Cape’s first Protestant church across from the Common Pleas Courthouse in 2012.
The church’s next home was at Broadway and Spanish. I photographed the steeple of the church being painted in 1967.
Here’s the bell that was salvaged from a sunken steamboat and used at the first church.
After the university bought this building, the congregation moved out to 1289 Lexington Avenue.

Billy Sunday swelled ranks

The congregation had swelled to 719 by the time it moved to 926 Broadway. Part of the growth – an increase of 258 – was attributed to Billy Sunday’s revival in Cape in 1926. Here’s The Missourian’s front page account of Billy Sunday’s arrival in town.

University bought building in 2003

The university bought the church in 2003 for $3.5 million. The congregation relocated in 2006, and the university remodeled portions of the building in order to occupy it in 2007. The stained glass windows remained.