![[photo] [photo]](Union%20Bethel%20AME1.jpg)
Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
Church
Photo by Ellen Sievert, courtesy
of the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation
Advisory Commission |
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Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
Church:
Great Falls, Montana
The Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in
Great Falls, Montana, is one of the first-built and longest-used
churches for African Americans in Montana and is important because
it represents trends in black community growth in the western
United States. The church played an integral role in the historical
development of the Great Falls' black community, and has remained
active since its founding in a state whose relative African
American population has decreased. Following emancipation and
the end of the Civil War, a growing number of freedmen and women
and freeborn African Americans joined the national migration
west. African Americans organized for mutual benefit swifter
than other arriving settlers in the Pacific Northwest; and this
usually began with the construction of an African Methodist
Episcopal or Baptist Church.
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![[photo] [photo]](Union%20Bethel%20AME2.jpg)
Tower of Union Bethel AME Church
Photo by Ellen Sievert, courtesy
of the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation
Advisory Commission |
Paris Gibson had the Great Falls townsite laid out in late 1883,
and construction of the town began the following spring. Great
Falls grew slowly until the arrival of the railroad in 1887-8,
and a small black community emerged in the late 1880s. In 1890
the Great Falls AME church organized as a congregation and began
meeting in the city's first fire station on 2nd Avenue South.
The next year, Paris Gibson, for the Great Falls Water Power and
Townsite Company, sold the lot on which the current AME church
stands to Ed Simms, William Morgan and A.W. Raym, trustees of
the Great Falls AME. The original one-story wood frame building
was built in 1891 with a parsonage adjoining the south side of
the building. The Rev. Joel Childress led the drive to raise money
for the original church. The new church became an active part
of the AME structures in Montana and the regional AME organization,
and held the statewide AME conference in 1908. However, by 1916
the original wooden church was falling down, and between September
1915 and April 1917, two successive pastors appealed to the Great
Falls public for financial assistance toward building a new church.
With help from the larger Great Falls community, the church raised
the money needed to build the existing church. While the architect
for the 1917 Union Bethel AME Church is unknown, the church is
a good representation of local Gothic Revival interpretation,
with its characteristic focus on vertical, narrow, and pointed
elements, and a typical size and structure for churches built
in Montana during the early 20th century. The ecclesiastic home
for the Union Bethel AME congregation is a tall, one-story rectangular,
wooden structure with brick veneer that is sheltered by a steep
gable roof.
![[photo] [photo]](Union%20Bethel%20AME1b.jpg)
Interior of Union Bethel AME Church
Photo by Ellen Sievert, courtesy
of the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation
Advisory Commission |
|
True to its roots, Union Bethel served diverse social and civil
purposes--the Church provided a forum in which African Americans
and white Great Falls residents could mix socially in what was
generally a restrictive social environment. The women of Union
Bethel formed organizations to benefit the church and the community,
including a Ladies' Aid society and a missionary group. Later
some of the women in the Church formed the Dunbar Art and Study
Club, which promoted literacy and did much to promote civil rights.
It was in the 1950s, however, that the church reached a turning
point in its traditional membership when the assignment of black
airmen to East Base/Malmstrom Air Force Base brought in new black
residents, some of whom stayed in Great Falls after leaving the
military. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s thousands of employees
lost jobs in smelting and rail repair, two mainstays of the Great
Falls and local African American economy, and from 1973-86 the
church lacked a resident minister and operated with lay membership
from dedicated members. In the 1990s, the AME Fifth Episcopal
District Bishop appointed Rev. Robert Payne, an ordained Air Force
officer from Malmstrom Air Force Base, to the ministry at Union
Bethel. Union Bethel is the largest of the three AME congregations
in Montana.
"This listing is the first completed using grant funds
from the Land Title Association Foundation, and has been a resounding
success," says Kate Hampton, National Register Program
Historian with the State Historic Preservation Office. "The
nomination process resulted in excellent research and documentation
of not only this significant building, but also many important
aspects of the history of African-American communities in Montana."
Today, the congregation is flourishing under its new leadership
with a multi-racial mix of Air Force personnel and a small but
influential group of long-term members and their extended families.
The Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was listed
in the National Register of Historic Places on September 11,
2003. As a result of the publicity of this recognition, several
Montana businesses and organizations have come forward offering
supplies and services to help restore and stabilize the building,
including structural engineers, historic architects, building
supply companies and contractors. In addition, attendance and
membership at the church has been increasing.
African American Feature
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Bethel AME Church
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