South Highland Presbyterian Church

South Highland Presbyterian Church (organized in 1888) is located at 2035 Highland Avenue. The senior minister is Edwin G. Hurley.

History

South Highland Presbyterian Church was founded as a mission of Birmingham's Third Presbyterian Church to serve the growing number of families in the newly-incorporated town of Highland. The request for organizing a new church was made, a year after the organization of Saint Mary's-on-the-Highlands Episcopal Church, in the form of a petition signed by a number of ladies living in the area. The first service, held at Taylor's School on Cottonwood Avenue (10th Court South), was led by the Presbytery's Evangelist, Paul C. Morton, who was called to organize the new church from Goodwater in Coosa County. He was succeeded by the church's first interim pastor, W. I. Sinnott in November.

A frame building was completed in February 1889 on a donated lot next to the school, now the site of the Parke Memorial Library. To raise funds, the Woman's Band of the church sewed and baked good to be sold at the Five Points Saturday Market. The first permanent pastor to take South Highland's pulpit was Alexander Phillips, who stayed a little more than a year. During his term, initial plans were made for the construction of a new sanctuary. A lot across from the Highland Town Hall, on the southwest corner of Highland Avenue and 21st Street South was purchased on June 11, 1890 from the Elyton Land Company for $2,500. Plans for an English Gothic Revival church in rough-faced limestone with slate roofs, a corner tower and large stained-glass windows with a seating capacity of 500 were drawn up by architect D. A. Helmich. To facilitate financing for the $30,000 building, the church was incorporated on October 18, 1891 as South Highlands Presbyterian Church^1.

The cornerstone for the new building was laid on January 1, 1892. Around the same time, a mission to the convict miners at Pratt Mines Prison No. 2 was founded. The Woman's Band changed its name to the Woman's Foreign Mission Society and began sending part of their raised funds to toward foreign missions and part to the support of the Tuscaloosa Colored Institute. Another mission outpost was established in Shades Valley near the present Crestline Village. A parsonage was established on Rose Avenue.

The financial panic of 1893 introduced a period of precarious finances for the church, which continued until its debts had been paid off in September 1900. A pipe organ, built by Henry Pilcher and Sons of Louisville, Kentucky, and powered by municipal water pressure, was installed in 1903. Electrical service was brought to the church later that year. The membership rolls grew rapidly and mission activities expanded, with the Talladega Orphans Home and the TCI Mission in Ensley among those receiving funds. South Highland Presbyterian also materially supported the new Fairfield Presbyterian Church.

In 1911 a cottage and lot adjacent to the church building was purchased for $12,000 from Mrs Robert Redus. The house was used as a Sunday School, Offices and Pastor's Study and was expanded to accommodate more classrooms. With the old Sunday School rooms on the back of the original building vacated, the main sanctuary was expanded and reoriented.

Pastors

• Paul C. Morton (organizer): October 31, 1888
• W. I. Sinnott (supply): November 18, 1888 - February 17, 1889
• Alexander Phillips: March 1, 1889 - September 1, 1890
• Thornton Whaling: January 1891 - September 1892
• John Barbour: 1893 - early 1898
• J. J. Grier: 1898 - January 1, 1903
• Sterling Foster: April 1, 1903 - April 4, 1909
• John T. Plunker: June 1909 - November 10, 1912
• Henry Edmonds: 1913 - 1915
• Albert S. Johnson: January 1916 - May 1918
• John McNeill: 1918 - July 1920
• William Dobyns: 1920 - 1932
• William Alexander: 1932 - 1941
• J. Rupert McGregor: July 1942 - 1947
• Al Mathes: March 16, 1947 - 1958
• Gene Poe: March 1958 - Summer 1963
• Ben Lacy, Jr: September 8, 1963 - March 1964 (supply)
• Z. V. Roberson: 1964 (interim)
• Sterling Edwards: September 1964 - August 31, 1976
• John McQueen: September 1976 - March 1977 (interim)
• J. Frank Alexander: March 13, 1977 - December 31, 1986
• David Huffines: January 1987 (interim)
• G. Dana Waters: February 1, 1987
• Henry Strock: (interim)
• Edwin G. Hurley: - present

Notes

1. The extra "s", discovered during research for the church's centennial, has since been dropped from the incorporation papers.