Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 08/05/09
SUMMARY
McRae Methodist Church was organized in 1901. The first building was constructed in 1903 and served the assemblage well for forty-three years. After the consolidation of the Lebanon Methodist Church a new construction project was undertaken. This new building was truly vernacular being constructed over a period of two years by volunteers from the church and the community. Completed in 1948 with a stone veneer this Gothic Revival influenced church had been doubled in size. It was here that the Methodists of McRae built solid ecclesiastical relationships and from here that they reached out to the community.
The McRae Methodist Church is being submitted to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A for its role in the history of religion in McRae and under Criterion C as a good example of Plain-Traditional, Mixed Masonry architecture with Gothic Revival influence in McRae. As an active church it is being submitted with Criteria Consideration A.
ELABORATION
White County was settled as early as 1811.Many of these early settlers were from Tennessee and Kentucky, continuing a long tradition of westward movement in the United States. Settlement was slow through the early and middle nineteenth century. As waterways were the primary means of travel, it was not until after the removal of snags, rafts, and other obstructions on the White River that settlement of what would become White County began in earnest. White County was formally established under the Territorial government of Arkansas on October 23, 1835. The first county courthouse was built at Searcy in 1840 after a lengthy and tumultuous process of deciding on a location for the county seat.
Through the middle of the nineteenth century Searcy remained the county’s largest town. Smaller communities such as Pleasant Grove, Center Hill, and El Paso, grew up around small post-offices, blacksmith shops, or general stores. The arrival of the railroad and the granting of lands by the federal government to assist in the construction of those railroads opened new areas of the county to settlement. In some cases entire towns moved to take advantage of the railroad or new towns were built along the tracks. The movement of this economic and political traffic from the rivers to the railroads often determined the survival for many of these small towns.
McRae was one of the new towns to spring up along the Cairo and Fulton Railroad; platted on August 12, 1897.[1] Like so many other towns in Arkansas, McRae became a shipping point on the railroad. Railroad towns became the entry point for the world to their little regions as well as the entry point for the town to the world. It was in these little towns that orders from the Sears-Roebuck catalogue were telegraphed and where those orders later arrived. The railroad station in towns like McRae became the source of all the news and notes from the wider world. Newspapers, magazines, catalogues, and the mail all arrived through the station by train. More than these even, the small town depot served as the metropolitan hustle and bustle; the arrival of the train was the busiest part of the day.[2]
McRae, and the area around, remained sparsely settled until about 1910.William F. Chumley’s 1889 application for a Post Office named McRae lists only twelve families living in town. Nevertheless Dan Chumley operated a combination grist and sawmill, and cotton gins were operated by Madison Robinson and Brace Morris. Through the early 1900s McRae’s position as a manufacturing and agricultural center grew. There was a sorghum mill, a veneer mill, and a box factory. The box factory’s entire production was used for locally grown sweet potatoes and strawberries.[3]
Strawberries would prove to be McRae’s signature crop. The McRae Progress proudly noted May 25, 1916, that sixty-five boxcars of strawberries were shipped from local warehouses and canneries. The paper estimated further that the number of shipments would approach one hundred cars before the season was over.[4] The McRae Strawberry Association was created in 1912 to advertise and sell McRae strawberries. As McRae historian Bruce Cooks notes, “almost everyone in town had a few acres of berries.” [5] Though cotton and other agricultural products were being grown in the area and logging and sawmill operations continued, strawberries were the primary source of economic success in the town. The strawberry economy reached its peak in McRae in the 1920s. By the 1930s shippers began, gradually, to ship by truck to markets and warehouses in Bald Knob, Judsonia, or Searcy.[6]
By the late 1950s the strawberry industry in McRae was only a fraction of what it had been in the 1920s. Competition from fruit growing associations in Bald Knob and truckers willing to take crops from field to other cities combined with the Diaspora of World War II to dramatically slow the industry in McRae. What began in the late 1880s was gone by the 1960s. Though it does not owe its formation or construction to strawberries, it was certainly in some part due to strawberries that the McRae Methodist Church flourished. As the McRae Progress noted in 1916, “Strawberry and Ice Cream suppers are very numerous lately. The one given at the Methodist Church was well patronized Saturday night.”[7]
The history of Methodism in Arkansas is as intricate and detailed as the history of the Methodist Church in America. The Tennessee Conference established the Spring River Circuit in 1815. Circuit was an appropriate name, given that Reverend William Stevenson of Bellview, Missouri, was assigned to ride the large circuit. Stephenson’s route included all the land in the watersheds of the Little Red, Spring, Strawberry, and White rivers. After Missouri’s inclusion into the United States, the Spring River Circuit was under the Missouri Conference. By 1825, the Arkansas Gazette reported that William Stevenson had organized a regular society in Little Rock and by 1833 the first Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in Little Rock.
Of course as the work of the Methodist Church was advancing under William Stevenson in central Arkansas, the Methodist Protestant Church was gaining members in northern and western Arkansas. The Methodist Protestant Church was formed in 1830 after a schism with the Methodist Episcopal Church over governance structures. When Arkansas was admitted to the United States in 1836 there were 2,733 white, 599 African and freed black, and 1,225 Native American members in its six districts (the six districts included north Louisiana and part of the Indian Territory).
The largest and most divisive split in the church occurred in 1844 when the Methodist Episcopal Church split over the issue of slavery. At that time the Methodist Episcopal Church was one of the largest denominations in Arkansas. The issue of Abolition had been present in the church from 1784. By 1844, the issue could no longer be laid aside and the church split to become the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and Methodist Episcopal Church. Though there were churches in Arkansas that attempted to stay with the Methodist Episcopal Church, particularly in northern and western Arkansas, often the pressure within the community was too great and most ceased regular, open worship until Reconstruction.
The McRae Methodist Church was organized as part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in approximately 1901. George Goodrich, a well known and wealthy steamboat Captain, gave lots one, two, eleven, and twelve in block four to the church for only a dollar. Goodrich was one of three church trustees noted on the deed.[8] The first building, a frame structure, was constructed by Forest Blevins on the lot facing East 3rd Street.[9] This small clapboarded building stood until 1946. After the consolidation of McRae Church with Lebanon Methodist Church in 1940, the McRae Church was too small. It was decided to tear down the 1903 building and begin the construction of a new church.
The building committee decided to construct a new sanctuary and use the old cemetery for classrooms space. After moving the old church building to a new northwest-southeast orientation, the new frame sanctuary was constructed facing North Wilks Street, or southwest.[10] Both the new sanctuary and the original church building were then clad in native stone set in a random pattern with grapevine mortar joints. The new Gothic Revival influenced church was completed in 1948 and dedicated by Bishop Paul E. Martin on February 29.[11] Ed Weir and Roy Lee Crisco of Copperas Springs completed the carpentry and masonry for the new structure. Neither was an architect but both were skilled tradesmen.
The new arrangement worked well until the early 1950s when it was decided that the church needed a fellowship hall. Fred Henry approached Henry F. Hammack with a request for a donation so that they might construct their new fellowship hall. Hammack, who was known popularly as Bachelor, was a part owner and President of the McRae State Bank, a farmer, a land speculator, and one time railroader. Though Hammack did not attend any church, he donated $3,000 toward the construction of the new Fellowship Hall. A document housed in Hammack Hall and a historic photograph reveal that perhaps Hammack’s intention was to create a public library for the city of McRae. Henry Hammack is listed as being president of the Methodist Episcopal Memorial Public Library founded in April of 1959. Reverend Harold Bailey is listed as librarian. There is little information on the use of the library and unfortunately much of the collection has been lost. After his death in 1962 this building was named Hammack Hall.[12]
Hammack Hall is a simple frame structure with beige brick veneer constructed to the northwest of the 1903 church. Built in what some might call a Ranch style, it was not connected to the church. In 1979, the church began a renovation project that enclosed the opening between Hammack Hall and the church to create a space for bathrooms. This project also enclosed the front porch. This front porch enclosure was accomplished by installing modern commercial steel-framed windows and doors. Essentially, this created a Narthex where the church members can leave umbrellas and coats before entering the sanctuary. Enclosing the breezeway, while affording those going to the restroom some comfort, connected the buildings. It is, primarily due to these changes that the building was deemed ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
[2] John R. Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 198-209.See also Carl H. Moneyhon, Arkansasand the New South, 1874-1929 (Fayettville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 103.
[3] Cook, 29-38.
[4] Ibid., 55.
[5] Ibid., 64.
[6] Ibid., 64-9.
[7] McRae Progress, quoted in Cook, 52.
[8] White County, Clerks Office, Deed Book 71, 17, 18.
[9] Cook, 30; Nelda Jean LaFerney, “Untitled manuscript, 2001 (?),” DS (photocopy), p. 1, Records of McRae Church, McRae, AR.
[10] Ibid., 87. LaFerney, 2001 (?), 4-5; Florence LaFerney to Arline Baxley, September 22, 1986, transcript in the records of McRae Church, McRae, AR.Historical Record of Churches, “McRae First United Methodist Church, 1988,” p. 1, Arkansas Methodist Church Archives, Bailey Library, Hendrix College, Conway, AR.
[11] Arkansas Methodist, April 22, 1948. Photocopy in the records of McRae Church, McRae, AR.
[12] Cook, 113.LaFerney, 2001 (?), 5.
SIGNIFICANCE
The McRae Methodist Church has played an important part in the history of McRae. As is so common to Methodist parishioners, they show an affinity for helping the community. During the Great Depression, when strawberry prices plummeted and droughts significantly impacted the local farming community, McRae Church sponsored a Christmas Tree. Members of the church dressed as Santa and gave away presents to local children who otherwise would have had no present. The church also had a very active Women’s Society of Christian Service.[1]
Built by local craftsmen with local support, the McRae Methodist Church stands as a good example of ecclesiastical architecture in McRae. The form and style reflect local theological belief and the construction highlights the abilities of Arkansas carpenters and masons. The McRae Methodist Church is being submitted to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A for its role in the history of religion in McRae and under Criterion C as a good example of Plain-Traditional, Mixed Masonry architecture with Gothic Revival influence in McRae. As an active church it is being submitted with Criteria Consideration A.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arkansas Methodist Church Archives, Bailey Library, Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas.
The Records of McRae First United Methodist Church, McRae, Arkansas.
Britton, Nancy. Two Centuries of Methodism in Arkansas, 1800-2000. Little Rock, AR: August House Publishers, Inc., 2000.
________. “Methodists.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture (9/23/2008). Available online at http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/. Accessed 20 May 2008.
Cook, Bruce. The History of McRae, Arkansas. Searcy, AR: Harding University Press, 1981.
Jewell, Horace. A History of Methodism in Arkansas. Little Rock, AR: Press Printing Company, 1892.
Moneyhon, Carl H. Arkansas and the New South, 1874-1929. Fayettville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997.
Stilgoe, John R. Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
White County, Arkansas. Clerk’s Office. Deed Books.