First United Methodist Church
First United Methodist Church of Birmingham (originally the First Methodist Episcopal Church South) is located at 518 19th Street North, on the southwest corner of its intersection with 6th Avenue North in downtown Birmingham. The senior pastor is Keith D. Thompson.
The church first met in January 1872 in the Bryant House, a storehouse at First Avenue and 21st Street North. Before the end of June the congregation constructed a small frame structure for $1,600 on a lot provided for a token $5 by the Elyton Land Company on the church's present site. C. C. Ellis was assigned as the church's first full-time pastor.
Before 1883 the original building was replaced with a larger, brick-clad sanctuary two blocks south. The $20,000 building featured tall lancet windows and a bell tower with a steeple roof over the eastern entrance.
In 1891, First United Methodist built the sanctuary it uses to the current day. The church, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by George Kramer of Weary and Kramer, an Akron, Ohio firm known for his church designs. It is in the American Romanesque Revival style of architecture, also known as "Richardsonian Romanesque", and is clad in Ohio brownstone. The Gilreath-Decker Construction Company was the builder, and the cost, originally to have been around $80,000, ended up exceeding $160,000. A marble baptismal font by Tiffany & Company of New York was purchased for the building.
The current entry lobby was originally an Akron plan Sunday School with an assembly room and two levels of classrooms. In 1909 First Methodist pioneered the use of individual cups to serve communion wine as a means of discouraging the spread of disease.
The church added an administration building in 1921, an office and chapel building in 1950, and an education building in 1964. The sanctuary underwent a major renovation beginning in 1972, part of which included cutting a new entrance into the rear of the original sanctuary building.
First United Methodist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Gallery
First Methodist's 1872 building
First Methodist's 1881 building
1950s postcard view of First Methodist
Interior of First Methodist in 2014
Pastors
- Thomas Slaughter, 1872
- T. H. Davenport, 1873
- W. L. Clifton, 1874
- W. C. Hearn, 1875-1876
- J. W. Christian, 1877-1880
- J. W. Newman, 1881-1883
- Hardie Brown, 1884-1886
- J. L. Britain, 1887
- C. B. Riddick, 1887-1890
- James C. Morris, 1891-1894
- Gilby Kelly, 1895-1898
- John McFerrin, 1899-1902
- C. B. Riddick, 1903-1904
- James Duncan, 1905-1907
- L. C. Branscomb, 1908-1911
- J. W. Johnson, 1912-1915
- George Stewart, 1916-1926
- W. A. Smart, 1926
- Arthur Moore, 1927-1929
- Robert Goodrich, 1930-1931
- Clovis Chappel, 1932-1935
- W. Angie Smith, 1936-1937
- Joseph A. Smith, 1938-1939
- Fred Chenault, 1940-1944
- John Horton, 1945-1948
- Paul Hardin, 1949-1959
- Denson Franklin, 1960-1969
- Edwin Kimbrough, 1970-
- Keith D. Thompson, current
References
- Century of Worship: 1872-1972 (1972) Birmingham: First United Methodist Church/Oxmoor Press
- Schorrenberg, John M. and Janice Ford-Freeman, "Enduring Grace-Birmingham's Historic Downtown Churches," in Walking Tours of Birmingham Churches Conducted from 1990 to 1999, Birmingham Historical Society - accessible in Sterne Library, UAB.
External links
- First United Methodist Church website
- First United Methodist Church on Facebook
- First United Methodist Church on Twitter