City/Town: • Anniston |
Location Class: • Religious |
Built: • 1949 | Abandoned: • 2000 |
Status: • Abandoned • Gutted |
Photojournalist: • David Bulit |
Table of Contents
First Baptist Church of Anniston
The First Baptist Church of Anniston was organized in 1887 and met in a frame house in West Anniston. It is the oldest church in Anniston. A building was built on the corner of 14th and Pine Avenue for worship, but a storm destroyed it in 1900. For the next two years, members met in a tent and then at the Alabama Land Company Building until a second church was completed in 1902 on the same corner as the former church.
The new church was destroyed in a fire on November 18, 1945, causing a loss of $65,000 and a spiritual loss. At the time of its destruction, the congregation numbered 1,800 members. That same day, the Board of Directors met to begin planning to erect a new building, and efforts to fund the construction were underway. Once again, the congregation met in a tent, awaiting their new place of worship.
Reverend L. N. Claxton
Construction began on the new church in 1948, the vision of the late Reverend Lewis Napoleon Claxton, who served as pastor of the church for 37 years. Claxton was born on July 14, 1883, in Franklin, Georgia. He grew up in LaGrange and received his education at the Secondary Agricultural School in Franklin and the old Baptist College in LaGrange. At the time, the college was co-educated until it became an all-female institute. He also did seminary work at the Baptist Bible Institute of New Orleans.
When Claxton came to Anniston in 1910, he had been in ministry for four years, serving as pastor at Unity Baptist Church in LaGrange and Union Grove in the small community of Glenn. The First Baptist Church of Anniston was his first full-time pastorate. During his years of service, he actively participated in religious and educational programs and served on the Board of Education for ten years. He was a State Baptist Sunday School Board member and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Civil clubs honored him several times for outstanding service to the city, including his efforts on behalf of the Community Chest Appeal he once headed. As pastor of the First Baptist Church, he watched the congregation grow from a small 100 to 200-member congregation into one of the largest in the city.
Claxton served from 1910 until his death on September 10, 1947. At the time of his death, he led the church movement to build the new edifice to replace the one destroyed by fire several years earlier. He never saw his vision come to be. The new house of worship for the First Baptist Church of Anniston was completed in 1949.
Destruction of the 1949 Building
On September 15, 2000, a fire was reported at the church at 11:18 p.m. when Anniston police officers on patrol noticed the fire. When firefighters arrived, flames had engulfed the church office and hallway near the sanctuary. While four engines rushed to the scene, the fire spread rapidly through the walls and into the attic above the sanctuary. Throughout the night and the following day, firefighters returned to the church to pour water on the burned-out structure. Investigators determined that the building was deliberately set on fire and that the church was burglarized not long before the fire was set.
The following Monday, members of the congregation crept through the charred remains of the church sanctuary to view the loss of their third home. While the exterior appeared unscathed, with only a few darkened windows, the inside told a different story. Hand-in-hand, members went into the sanctuary, “where melted ceiling tiles lined the tops of wooden pews like clumps of grey weathered snow.”
The Anniston Star described the scene: “Afternoon sunlight filtered through cracked and smoke-tinged stained glass windows, illuminating an eerie scene. Lighted only by [the] sun, the sanctuary had an abandoned quality, the feel of a war-torn structure. Red drop cloths drape the church’s piano and organ. The only music now is the irregular rhythm of water dripping through the roof of the rubble-strewn aisles.“
First Baptist Church of Anniston at Fort McClellan
Although church membership had been dwindling for several years, Fort McClellan was chosen as the site for a new church. Many believed they were not only rebuilding a physical structure but a house of healing and rebuilding the congregation. This 17,000-square-foot building was constructed on a former baseball and was the first full-time ministry to build on the former U.S. Army base. The facility features a sanctuary with seating for 300 and additional space for Sunday School classrooms, offices, a library, a conference room, and a “gathering place” where members could mingle before and after services.
Although the inside features modern conveniences, the exterior has Mediterranean-style features, including stucco walls and clay tiles that cover the roof to match the architecture of the nearby buildings in Fort McClellan’s Buckner Circle. The building also features an extensive sprinkler system so as not to be burned again. While the current church remains strong with an ever-growing congregation, the former structure remains empty and abandoned.