Historic Houses of Worship
Self Guided Tour
The Historic Houses of Worship Self-Guided Tour offers a fascinating journey through Athens, Georgia, showcasing the rich religious heritage of the city. Showcasing thirteen significant landmarks, each site bears its own compelling history, architectural evolution, and cultural significance.
Listed in order from East to West, according to the corresponding map of locations.
1. Oconee Street United Methodist Church (585 Oconee Street)
Oconee Street United Methodist was organized in 1871 with a modest congregation of sixteen members. Originally, the church was located on the other side of the river, closer to Broad Street. In 1882, John Wesley Brown organized a Sunday school on the east side of the river, and this class soon became associated with the Oconee Street church, along with another Sunday school class located in the Baldwin Street community. December 8, 1902, all three classes were consolidated. The following year, during the ministry of Reverend M. H. Cakes, the church itself was moved across the river to its present location at Oconee Street and Poplar Street and a parsonage home was purchased to house the pastor and his family. Over the subsequent decades, the church underwent a few changes, including the construction of an educational building in 1968 and a remodel and renovation of the sanctuary in 1979. In 1980, Oconee Street became the first church in the Athens-Elberton District to have a female pastor, Reverend Carolyn Morris. On April 15, 2013, a fire destroyed the original church. A new worship building and sanctuary were completed in the summer of 2015, modeled after the original.
2. Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church (396 Oconee Street)
Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church was established by Robert L. Bloomfield and built circa 1869 on Oconee Street. It was named in honor of Mary Baxter, a deceased shareholder of the nearby Athens Factory. The church was consecrated on Easter Day of 1871 and Bloomfield delivered the first sermon. Its design is believed to have been copied from a church that Bloomfield attended in his childhood home of Rahway, New Jersey. The church ended services around the turn of the twentieth century, preceded by a financial depression and a drop in attendance after the closing of the Athens Factory in 1892. All that remains of this chapel is its steeple, which has become a local icon.
3. University Chapel (Historic North Campus)
Completed in 1832 to replace an earlier wooden structure that burned, the Chapel was designed in the Greek Revival style. The building originally featured a bell tower that was removed in 1913 due to poor condition. The bell was relocated to a wooden tower behind the Chapel, and ringing it has become a popular way of celebrating graduations and Georgia football wins. Today, the Chapel is used as a recital hall for the School of Music, as well as lectures, meetings, and other gatherings. Historically, commencement ceremonies were also held here. Local lore states that Robert Toombs, a notoriously misbehaved student in the early nineteenth century, delivered his own commencement speech under a large oak tree outside of this chapel after being forbidden from participating in a commencement ceremony due to his behavior. He is said to have spoken so loudly and so eloquently that commencement attendees came out of the chapel to listen.
4. First Methodist Church (327 N. Lumpkin Street)
Athens Methodist Church first held services in a simple wood frame structure erected circa 1825 in the same location as their present-day church, on Lumpkin Street. The founding of this church was the result of a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees incorporated by an act of the Georgia General Assembly. The congregation outgrew the original structure by 1852, at which time it was given to the church’s African American congregation and relocated to the intersection of Foundry Street and Hancock Avenue. This congregation would later become known as the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. A brick church with the present steeple was built in place of the original, and the church was expanded circa 1884 to include a wing for classrooms. It was fully remodeled and further expanded between 1960 and 1963, with the steeple being the only element remaining from 1852.
5. Congregation Children of Israel Synagogue (355 E. Hancock Avenue)
A Jewish presence in Athens dates back to 1858 when Moses Myers and Gabriel Jacobs established businesses here. Shortly after the Civil War, Myers and Jacobs were joined by fellow businessmen Casper Morris, David Michael, and Myer Stern. By 1872, several Jewish businesses opened up in Athens and surrounding cities, prompting community leaders to open a house of worship. In 1873, the Jewish community began to establish its presence by purchasing parcels of land for a cemetery adjacent to Oconee Hill. In 1884, they built their first Synagogue at the corner of Jackson Street and Hancock Avenue. This building served as the Congregation’s house of worship for 84 years before being demolished for the construction of the Federal Building, after which a new building was dedicated on Dudley Drive where they still hold services today.
6. First Presbyterian Church (185 E. Hancock Avenue)
Founded under the leadership of Dr. Moses Waddel on Christmas Day in 1820, the congregation of Athens’ First Presbyterian Church originally met in a chapel on the college campus in the present-day location of the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building. At the time of the church’s founding, this area was in the Hopewell Presbytery, Synod of South Carolina. The present-day building on Hancock Avenue was designed by Ross Crane and built in 1855. It was remodeled in 1906, but many earlier exterior architectural elements were retained. Several treasured pews, and deacon’s benches from the original building, are still in use in various rooms and offices, and one is on loan at the Church-Waddel-Brumby House Museum. The neighboring Tinsley-Stern House, built circa 1833 for Dr. James Tinsley, was acquired by the church in 1992.
7. First African Methodist Episcopal Church (521 N. Hull Street)
Originally known as Pierce’s Chapel, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1866 by Henry McNeal Turner, who was the first Black chaplain in the U.S. Army. Pierce’s Chapel members were descendants of slaves brought to North Georgia in 1830 from Virginia and Maryland by mostly white Methodists for the labor-intensive plantation system. There are two stories about where their services originally took place: in a blacksmith’s shop, and in a simple wooden chapel given by the white members of the Methodist church when their congregation outgrew it, at which time it was relocated to the intersection of Hancock Avenue and Foundry Street. The congregation may have held services here informally during the fourteen years between the donation of the building and the arrival of Henry McNeal Turner. The present-day chapel on Hull Street was designed and constructed in 1916 by architect Louis Persley and builder Richard Walker, both from Macon, GA. In April of 1920, Persley became the first Black architect registered with the Georgia State Board of Architects.
8. First Christian Church (268 W. Dougherty Street)
Athens Christian Church was organized in 1876 by a small group who met for worship in a space above the market at Athens’ Town Hall. Their first stand-alone house of worship was built in 1884 where Athens Blueprint is now located. Following the construction of the current building in 1915, which was designed by G.W. Kramer, the original church building was moved across Dougherty and served as a boarding house and later Bridges Funeral Home. It stood in this location until 1971 when it was demolished for the construction of Denney Towers. A parsonage was built in 1926 to the right of the church, which was demolished in 1973 to address the church’s parking issue. In 1952, this church became the first in Athens to have an air-conditioned sanctuary.
9. First Baptist Church (355 Pulaski Street)
Athens Baptist Church was constituted on January 31, 1830, at the Presbyterian Church, with a congregation of just fifteen members which included natives of Ireland, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. The first physical home of Athens Baptist Church was a “plain house” on the northwest corner of the college campus, near the intersection of Broad and Lumpkin streets. The church moved in 1860 to a new facility on Washington Street near College Avenue where it became one of the first buildings in Athens to have gas lights installed. In 1898, they moved into a new building at approximately the same location. The present-day location at Hancock Avenue and Pulaski Street was built in 1921 and has remained as the church’s home since then. It was renovated and expanded in 1951, 1980 and 1993.
10. Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church (100 Prince Avenue)
The Catholic Church of Saint Joseph originated in the Diocese of Savannah. Bishop William Gross visited Athens in 1873 and met with active Catholic families in the area, who asked that he purchase land and start a parish here. Over the next few years, the parish became more formally organized, and, in 1881, a lot containing a small wooden building was purchased from the estate of Thomas R.R. Cobb. This building had been his and his father-in-law’s law office, built in 1810, and it served as the first home of Saint Joseph’s. In 1913, this building was moved to the rear of the lot, and the present-day chapel at the corner of Pulaski Street and Prince Avenue was built in its place. A rectory was built to the left of the chapel three years later, which later served as a school. One outstanding feature of the 1913 chapel was its eight large stained glass windows, created in Germany, each of which depicted an event in the life of Christ.
11. Hill First Baptist Church (205 N. Pope Street)
Hill First Baptist Church’s history began with a group of white parishioners and the people they enslaved worshiping together at the local Presbyterian Church building. They later held services in what was described as a “plain house” at the northwest corner of the college campus, near the present-day Broad and Lumpkin street intersection. Those who were enslaved were given the autonomy to preach to fellow slaves in services separate from their enslavers. In 1857, the African American members of this church, Athens Baptist, expressed a desire to form their congregation and worship in their own chapel. The two churches continued to share their land and their name until 1867, at which time Hill First Baptist Church was built at the intersection of Pope and Reese streets and their congregation officially separated from Athens Baptist Church. The church was named after Reverend Floyd Hill, who was their first minister.
12. Emmanuel Episcopal Church (498 Prince Avenue)
Emmanuel has the oldest Episcopal congregation in Athens, dating to 1842. In 1835, Dr. Richard Dudley Moore brought his new wife, Elizabeth Stockton, to Athens, who was concerned about the town’s lack of an Episcopal church. She had been a member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in her native state of Delaware, and when this congregation was organized by Dr. William Bacon Stevens, the name was chosen to honor her. In the mid-1800s, a structure was built at the intersection of Lumpkin and Clayton streets which the congregation outgrew by the 1890s. The cornerstone for a small Gothic chapel was laid here at Prince Avenue and Pope Street in 1895, and the chapel was completed in 1899. The large stained glass window that faces Prince Avenue was first installed in their Clayton Street church in 1873. The tower was added in 1931 in honor of R. L. Bloomfield, who was heavily involved with the church from the beginning.
13. Young Harris Memorial United Methodist Church (64 Prince Place)
Young Harris Memorial United Methodist was organized in January 1909. Their original house of worship, dedicated in October of 1910, was built at the corner of Chase Street and Nantahala Avenue. In December of 1910, a parsonage was built on Boulevard (685 Boulevard) and two years later it was decided that relocating the church, itself, to Boulevard would be in their best interest. A lot at the corner of Boulevard and Chase Street was purchased and the church was moved to that site. In 1930, a Sunday school annex was built onto the back. A ten-thousand-dollar donation was made ten years later by Mr. Eustace Lampkin for repairs, remodeling, or reconstruction, and ultimately it was decided that using those funds on the original building would be impractical. Instead, they decided to sell the building and purchase a larger lot on Prince Avenue, which included the former home of Judge Edwin K. Lumpkin, on which to construct a new church. In 1946, the church officially sold its original building and purchased the lot on Prince Avenue, and on October 16, 1949, they held their first service in the new building. The original church building no longer stands. However, the Sunday school annex is now home to Urban Sanctuary Spa.