The Bradford Community Church, originally the Henry M. Simmons Memorial Church and later the Boys and Girls Library, is a historic church built in 1907 in

Kenosha, Wisconsin Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenos ...

, United States under the leadership of Kenosha's first woman pastor.

History

The Henry M. Simmons Memorial Church was built in 1907 for pastor Florence Buck. Buck was ordained at the

Meadville Theological School The Meadville Lombard Theological School is a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, Illinois. History Meadville Lombard is a result of a merger in the 1930s between two institutions, a Unitarian seminary and a Universalist seminary. M ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and came to

to preach in 1901. She was the first woman to have a ministry in Kenosha and was involved in the design of the church. Buck was later named the acting director of the Department of Religious Education for the

American Unitarian Association The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it consolidated with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Uni ...

. The building was designed by N. Max Dunning, a Kenosha native. With . In 1929, the church was purchased by the city of Kenosha. It was converted into Wisconsin's first Boys and Girls Library, dedicated to serving the youth of the community. It served in this role for fifty years. The city sold the building to a private developer in 1979, beginning a period where it was used for various restaurants and bars. On October 24, 1980, the building was recognized by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

with a listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The Kenosha Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Church purchased the building in 1993, restoring it to the Unitarian Universalist Association. It was renamed the Bradford Community Church after

Mary D. Bradford Mary Davison Bradford (January 15, 1856 – February 3, 1943) became the first woman in Wisconsin to serve as superintendent of a major city School district, school system. She served as Superintendent (education), Superintendent of Schools of Ken ...

, an educational reformer who was also a leader in the original congregation, and after whom one of Kenosha's public high schools was also named. In 2020, the adjoining car lot was burned during the

Kenosha unrest In the aftermath of the August 2020 police shooting of Jacob Blake, protests, riots, and civil unrest occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and around the United States as part of the larger 2020–2022 United States racial unrest and Black Lives Ma ...

Architecture

The church was designed in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The limestone building sits on a differently-coursed limestone foundation. The main building has a prominent water table. The northeast corner of the church features a crenelated square tower. The double-door entrance, centered on the tower on the main facade, is in a pointed arch with stone molding. The rest of the building is a gable-roofed nave. The main facade of this gable features a large decorative leaded glass window. A small organ room was built on the north side of the building; this room was later used as a chapel and now serves as the minister's office and library.

References

{{List of Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist churches, state=autocollapse Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Public libraries in Wisconsin Unitarian Universalist churches in Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Kenosha, Wisconsin Churches completed in 1907 Gothic Revival church buildings in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Kenosha County, Wisconsin