Randolph Street Church of Christ

The story

Behind the sketch.

Randolph Street Church of Christ began with an 1883 gospel meeting in the county courthouse, where evangelists James A. Harding and David Lipscomb helped organize the congregation and inspire the purchase of this lot. One hundred thousand bricks arrived in late 1886, which suggests everyone was quite serious about the matter. The resulting Gothic Revival church was standing by 1887, with its first recorded gospel meeting held inside in 1889. Pointed windows, corbeled brickwork, and a central tower give the modest building more presence than its size would suggest. Hemmed in by a growing downtown, it remains a compact survivor from an era when a congregation could begin in the courthouse and proceed directly to ordering bricks by the hundred thousand.

Neighborhood

Downtown

Book location

Page 19