The preservation of historical sites in Chattanooga often takes divergent paths.
The First Methodist Church was established locally in 1865 at the present site of the Hamilton County Courthouse. It would move twice before building a new facility at the corner of McCallie and Georgia Avenues and become known as “The Stone Church” because its exterior was made of stone from a local quarry that is now the site of the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club.
In 1939, the Methodist Episcopal Church South and the Methodist Protest Church (North) united at the national level.
Locally two churches, First Methodist and Centenary Methodist remained as separate congregations, though only being one block apart.
In 1966 the two churches agreed to merge as First Centenary and in 1973 the present sanctuary was opened on the Houston Street side of the McCallie Avenue block.
The Stone Church and annex were demolished in 1976 except for the steeple which still stands today as a silent sentinel and reminder as to the historical past of both churches (thanks to historian Harmon Jolley for his July 27, 2003 article).
In another part of the town the Highland Park Baptist Church after a couple of moves was located at Union and South Orchard Knob Avenues.
In the Spring of 1922 a new red brick church building arose with the unique features of having four large clock faces on the upper part of its bell tower facing in each direction.
Dr.
Lee Roberson came to Highland Park Baptist Church in 1942 from Fairfield, Ala.
In 1946, the church established Tennessee Temple (University ) which over the years would graduate thousands of students prior to the school merging with Piedmont International University, a private Christian College in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
In 2014-2015, the university sold most of its Highland Park campus buildings to Redemption to the Nations, the parent organization of Redemption Point Church, and that ministry continues in 2022 in the thriving Highland Park community.
On June 10, 2022, the vacant Highland Park church building burned under suspicion of arson that is still under investigation by the Chattanooga Fire and Police Departments.
The auditorium adjacent to the brick steeple was destroyed.
Initially, the Bishop of Redemption to the Nations Church represented on June 12, 2022 that “church contractors were going to do what they can to save the bell tower and stained glass windows!”
However, after hiring an out of town church design company, the decision was made that the cost of preserving the historical site was going to be too expensive and in a 3 minute, 15 second video clip it was claimed that “it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars” to save the tower and then put a positive spin to the congregation to justify the destruction of another historical relic of Chattanooga’s past.
(What the future may hold for the site is unknown but the finding of a 1909 cornerstone, a time capsule, and its contents may be a poor consolation prize to the anticipated box shaped building that will replace one of Dr. Lee Roberson’s historical treasures?)
P.S. They were able to save and preserve the four expensive clock works from the unsafe building!
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You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)