The Baptists organized in Augusta around 1817 and built their first church home at this site in 1821. In that structure, the Southern Baptist Convention was established in 1845. This structure, designed by architect Willis Franklin Denny and built in 1902, served the congregation until 1975. It has been home to other churches over the years.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This exemplar of the Sand Hills Cottage style is a particularly nice example, with a Greek Revival facade. It was built for Captain William Henry Warren and his wife, Mary Moore Warren. Mrs. Warren was involved in benevolent projects, including the Mizpah Circle of the International Order of the King’s Daughters, which sought to improve the lives of its members through service to those less fortunate. Upon Mrs. Warren’s death in 1903, her estate set aside money for the establishment of the Mary Warren Home on Broad Street (later in Summerville) to care for indigent women and children. It served the community for many years.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This house was built on the eve of the Civil War for Bolling Anthony Stovall (19 August 1827-24 August 1887), a prominent Piedmont merchant and engineer born in Hancock County to a well-to-do family who had come to Georgia from Virginia. Upon moving to Augusta, he began work as a cotton factor while attending Richmond Academy before entering Franklin College (University of Georgia). He studied civil engineering and worked in Alabama and Mississippi for a few years before returning to Georgia. He was also a surveyor for improvements to the Georgia State Road and worked with Major John G. Greene in the survey of the Atlanta & West Point Railroad. Because employment in engineering was sporadic at the time, he joined his father in his wholesale grocery business at Stovall & McLaughlin in Augusta. At the outset of the war, he entered the Confederate service as a sergeant with Company A, Richmond Hussars, Cobb’s Legion. He was transferred to the engineering corps as a lieutenant under General John Bankhead Magruder during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, before finishing out the war as a captain in the subsistence department under the command of fellow Augustan General Isaac Munroe St. John. He married Mattie Wilson after the war and worked for many years as a traveling agent with the Georgia Chemical Works of Augusta.
Stovall’s son, Pleasant Alexander Stovall (7 July 1857-14 May 1935), lived in the house until his parents left Augusta for Athens, in 1873. He became a prominent journalist and eventual owner of a Savannah newspaper. His childhood friend, President Woodrow Wilson, appointed him Ambassador to Switzerland in 1913, where he served until 1919.
Congressman George T. Barnes purchased the home in 1873 and in the 20th century it was used as a residential hotel/boarding house.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This was built by the Greene Street Methodist Church circa 1870 as a school for Black children and a parsonage. It also served the Union Baptist Church as a parsonage and was later used as a rental property.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The original section of this structure, dating to circa 1851, served as a mission of the Presbyterian Church, and though that congregation was not successful, the location was used as a Sunday School for enslaved Blacks during the Civil War. It later served as the Greene Street Methodist church before it became the Union Baptist Church in 1883. The Augusta architectural firm of MacMurphy & Story created the exquisite structure seen today in 1888. The Society of Architectural Historians considers it “one of the finest Carpenter Gothic buildings in the state” and I concur. Historic Augusta, Inc., restored the structure for the congregation between 1997-2010.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This Queen Anne House was built for Isaac Clarence Levy (12 January 1850-23 September 1897), a prominent Jewish merchant in turn-of-the-century Augusta. Levy was also active in statewide military circles, reaching the rank of Colonel. It has been restored and is now an apartment house.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Old Engine Company No. 7 was the first fire house in Augusta to utilize motorized fire trucks. The Spanish Colonial Revival structure was designed by Augusta architect Thomas Campbell. It served as a firehouse until 2003 and is still used for training and storage.
Summerville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I can’t locate a history of this structure, but it is now home to the Trumpet in Zion Fellowship.
Laney-Walker North Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The Penny Savings Loan and Investment Company was formed by a group of Augusta’s leading Black businessmen in 1910. This structure, based on designs by architect G. Lloyd Preacher, was built in 1925. An anchor of the Black business district known as the “Golden Blocks”, it closed its doors in 1928 as a result of economic woes and the looming Great Depression. Though stable, the structure has been long abandoned and attempts at rehabilitation have not materialized.
Laney-Walker North Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that Tabernacle Baptist Church is one of the most beautiful and unique religious facilities in all of Augusta. Situated on the city’s historic “Black Main Street”, Laney-Walker Boulevard, it is an imposing presence in the community. It grew out of the divided congregation of Central African Baptist Church and was first known as Beulah, but, at the request of founding pastor Reverend Charles Thomas Walker (5 February 1858-29 July 1921) changed its name to Tabernacle just two days later. Its membership grew from an initial 300 to over 2000 by 1889. Its original location was Ellis Street; the present structure dates to 1914.
The church prospered during the pastorate of Reverend Walker and garnered international attention and support from men as diverse as President William Howard Taft [a frequent visitor to Augusta], John D. Rockefeller, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver, who all attended services at Tabernacle. Reverend Walker, who was born into slavery at Hephzibah, was the first African-American theologian to visit the Holy Land, was appointed by President McKinley as the U. S. Volunteers Chaplain with the U. S. 9th Immune Infantry during the Spanish-American War, with the rank of Captain, and during a residency at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in New York, established the first African-American YMCA in Harlem. He also established the Walker Baptist Institute and served in numerous leadership roles within the Baptist faith.
During the pastorate of Reverend Charles Spencer Hamilton, Tabernacle became a center for the Civil Rights Movement in Augusta. In April 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached here. The church remains prominent in Augusta’s religious and cultural life.
Laney-Walker North Historic District, National Register of Historic Places