The First United Methodist Church is a historic

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was ...

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

Walker County, Alabama Walker County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama."ACES Walker County Office" (links/history), Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), 2007, webpageACES-Walker As of the 2020 census, the population wa ...

. The congregation dates back to the 1830s. This building is their fifth, built from 1912–21. Architectural scholars consider this to be one of the best of its type in the state. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on February 14, 1985. On December 10, 2022, the congregation disaffiliated with the United Methodist Church to join the Global Methodist Church and began using the name Jasper First Methodist Church.

History

The First United Methodist Church is the oldest religious congregation in Jasper. It was formed on June 14, 1833 when the first log church, formerly a community school, was deeded to the congregation. This building was used until they built a new frame structure at the current site circa 1858–59. The congregation went through two additional buildings before building the current church. The congregation established a building fund for a new structure in 1912. Construction started sometime afterwards. Lycurgus Breckenridge Musgrove was a major source of funding. A local banker and businessman, he donated two dollars for every one dollar raised by other means. He also donated the marble used in construction and the

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

. The construction was interrupted by

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, but resumed afterward. The new building was dedicated on November 3, 1921. A

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

struck the building on April 3, 1974, causing extensive damage to the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

and roof. It also ripped the main sanctuary doors apart, damaged or destroyed 34 of the 38

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows, and caused water damage in the interior. The damage was repaired from 1975–76. Destroyed stained glass windows were restored with sympathetically-designed modern replacements.

Architecture

Architectural historians with the Alabama Historical Commission consider the building to be "among Alabama's most outstanding examples of Beaux-Arts neoclassicism as interpreted for an ecclesiastical structure." Oddly, for a 20th-century building, the architect is unknown. Some scholars have suggested William Leslie Welton, a leading

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

architect of the period. It is also possible that it was adapted from designs in the Methodist publication ''Catalog of Plans of Down to Date Twentieth Century Churches'', published in 1912. It closely resembles plans 58 and 59 by George Kramer, an architect in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Another possibility is that the design was largely by the church pastor at that time, the Reverend William Winfield Scott. First Methodist Church of Jasper 03

The building is masonry, faced with Georgia marble. The two-story building is rectangular, set atop a raised basement. With the building situated on a corner lot, the principal facades are on the north and east sides. The projecting

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

es on the principal facades are

hexastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultu ...

with

monolithic A monolith is a monument or natural feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock. Monolith or monolithic may also refer to: Architecture * Monolithic architecture, a style of construction in which a building is carved, cast or excavated f ...

columns. The Ionic column capitals are a type used by

Vincenzo Scamozzi Vincenzo Scamozzi (2 September 1548 – 7 August 1616) was an Italians, Italian architect and a writer on architecture, active mainly in Vicenza and Republic of Venice area in the second half of the 16th century. He was perhaps the most importan ...

. An off-center pavilion on the south side of the building contains the

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

. The porticoes on the two principal facades are flanked by large arched stained glass windows. A shallow

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

tiles covers the building, surmounted by an octagonal cupola. The primary space in the interior of the church is the

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

. It is a large square

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...

. Panelled

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s and other elaborate woodwork in Honduran mahogany encircles the two-story room. A circular diameter art glass dome, high, provides illumination in the room. It is made up of 109 sections and contains 30,000 individual pieces of glass. It is lighted from above by electric light bulbs.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Walker County, Alabama Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Beaux-Arts architecture in Alabama 20th-century Methodist church buildings in the United States Buildings and structures in Walker County, Alabama Methodist churches in Alabama Churches completed in 1921 Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage Global Methodist churches in the United States