Oak Hill Baptist Church
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Oak Hill Baptist Church is an American Baptist Church in Oak Hill, West Virginia, formed in 1892, and located at 613 Lundale Drive since 1926. Affiliated with the West Virginia Baptist Convention, the church has offered traditional worship services for over a century.
The church is significiant in local Fayette County, West Virginia history because it predates the incorporation of Oak Hill, its members have been active in the formation of other churches in the region, it was associated with many of the "founders" of the community, and for its unique Greco-Roman facility.
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[edit] History
On December 22, 1892, seventy-two former members of the Bethel Baptist Church met to start a new Baptist work and organized the Oak Hill Baptist Church. Following two years of meeting in a school house and a local Methodist Church building, the new Baptist group managed to purchase property and build their own building on Main Street, across from where Plateau Medical Center is now located. The new church was dedicated on December 23, 1894.
The church experienced considerable growth, and in 1923 a new building fund drive was launched. On July 4, 1926, two years to the day after the ground breaking ceremony, the congregation marched approximately three blocks from their former church home to the present beautiful facility.
The Oak Hill Baptist Church was founded as a result of great vision and missionary fervor. Under strong leadership, the church began to make a significant contribution to West Virginia Baptist growth by starting missions throughout the area, leading to the formation of Baptist churches at Minden, Red Star, Scarbro, Sanger, and Mount Hope. In 1932, a mission station was established in the east end of Oak Hill. This work led to the purchasing of property and the building of a church through designated mission money. In 1946, the East End Baptist mission was organized into the Calvary Baptist Church.
[edit] Significance
The building of this church structure was a major event in Oak Hill of the 1920s. To finance the project, local community leaders gave of their time and energy to raise the funds needed in a small town surrounded by coal camps. The stained glass windows still mounted in the building reflect the names of most of the 1920s storekeepers and long time residents of the community. Also, the size of the construction meant that local builders suddenly had a major project, and were able to work alongside skilled craftsmen brought in from surrounding states. Many local builders, masons, and contractors can trace the roots of their success to experience gained from the building boom launched by the rising of the church structure.
The building's architectural importance echoed thoroughout the community for several decades after its completion. New construction of local homes across the community copied the red brick and black roof look throughout the second half of the 20th century. When an A&P grocery store moved to new building in the 1960s, its style fitted well with the style of the church. A local bank, "New River Banking and Trust" (now BB&T) was also built in the same general style just two blocks down the street in the early 1970s. The adjacent lot saw a county library built in the same style (although having Doric columns rather than Ionic).
The growth of the town of Oak Hill began alongside the construction of this church structure. This expansion allowed Oak Hill to become the largest town in Fayette County, surpassing the older communities of Fayetteville (the county seat) to the north and Mount Hope to the south. The coal camps encircling Oak Hill during the last century made Oak Hill the center of shopping, medicine and faith. As coal production was replaced by tourism, trade, light manufacturing, and tertiary industries, the population moved into a town that had been quietly shaped by the building of a church decades earlier.
[edit] Oak Hill Baptist Church today
Today, the church continues to make significant contributions to the community through the ministry of its members, and is well known in its community as a center for Christian Fellowship. The present resident membership exceeds 500.
However, the auditorium and fellowship hall have hosted both faith-based and secular community functions. Visitors to the New River Gorge National River pass by the facility as they enter the community from the south, and the church's red brick, columned facade is a local landmark of historical importance.
[edit] References
- Donnelly, Shirley. "The New Church Building", The Church Messenger, 1925.
