Sam Black Church, known today as Sam Black United Methodist Church, is an historic Carpenter Gothic-style church located at Sam Black Church near the

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Smoot The smoot is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot, a fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge (betwe ...

in Greenbrier County,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

The historic white frame church was built in 1902 and named in honor of

Reverend Sam Black Reverend Samuel Black (March 3, 1813 – July 13, 1899) was a Methodist circuit riding preacher from Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Largely based in Greenbrier County, the Reverend also preached through the counties of Kanawha, Braxton, Webst ...

, a circuit-riding

Southern Methodist , mottoeng = " The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , pro ...

preacher who died in 1899. It is a small one story building with a gable roof. It features a square, open

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

with a hipped roof. It is located at the intersection of Interstate 64 and

U.S. Route 60 U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia. The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as Pacific Avenue, in the ...

on the

Midland Trail The Midland Trail, also called the Roosevelt Midland Trail, was a national auto trail spanning the United States from Washington, D.C. west to Los Angeles, California and San Francisco, California ('' though the Lincoln Highway guide published i ...

, a

National Scenic Byway A National Scenic Byway is a road recognized by the United States Department of Transportation for one or more of six "intrinsic qualities": archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic. The program was established by Co ...

. It was listed 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 ...

in 1999.

References

Buildings and structures in Greenbrier County, West Virginia Carpenter Gothic church buildings in West Virginia Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia Churches completed in 1902 20th-century Methodist church buildings in the United States United Methodist churches in West Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Greenbrier County, West Virginia Southern Methodist churches in the United States {{WestVirginia-church-stub