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Huntington's 20th. Street Baptist Church as it appeared in a 1957 photo.
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HUNTINGTON -- The 20th Street Baptist Church was founded March 14, 1892, with a membership of
about 400.
However, its history actually stretches back to 1888 when the Fifth
Avenue Baptist Church founded
a mission Sunday school in a small frame building
on the corner of 20th Street and College Avenue.
In 1892, the
growing mission congregation became an organized church and officially adopted
the name
"20th Street Baptist Church."
It continued to add members and soon
outgrew its small building.
So in 1895 it built a new red brickstructure at
20th Street and 5th Avenue.
But by the
1920s, wear and tear had left the church building in such sad shape the city
building
inspector actually slapped a "Condemned" sign on it.
So the building
was demolished,
and the congregation temporarily worshipped at nearby
Holderby
School while they
drew up plans for a handsome new house of worship to be built
at the same site.
The new
church was dedicated on Dec. 12, 1926, and declared debt-free at a combination
Thanksgiving
and victory service on Nov. 25, 1945. In the 1950s, a new
three-story Sunday school building
was constructed on the west side of the
church.
In the 1950s,
the church had more than 800 active members. But like many old-line churches it
suffered
a sharp decline in membership in recent years. In the early 1990s, the
300-member congregation
began thinking
about moving to a smaller building, with
more parking
and better accessibility for the handicapped.
In 1996, when
Marshall University approached the church with an offer to buy the building,
the
congregation agreed to sell.
Ultimately, Marshall demolished the building and
used
the site for construction of its new Recreation Center. Meanwhile,
the
members of
20th Street Baptist and Beverly Hills Baptist merged to form the
New
Baptist Church,
which worships at the former Tri-State
Ice Arena at 5th Avenue
and 20th Street.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Nov. 17 , 2014
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