HISTORY OF THE
MINERAL CITY CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE
They came in their Model T’s, in
buggies and carts, skinny tired bikes, and on horseback. They
trudged down dusty trails and skipped through back alleys. It
was a lazy, hazy autumn in 1926 and a soul shaking revival was
“better’n nothin’”
That was the Coolidge era. The
roaring 20’s Jazz Age, Prohibition was blotted out by
speakeasies and bootleggers. Gangsters shared tabloid headings
with Lindbergh, “the Lone Eagle”, and his non-stop Atlantic
flight. Babe Ruth was hitting home runs and Red Grange, Jack
Dempsey, and Gene Tunney were sports heroes. The president,
even then, advocated chopping government spending and shrinking
the deficit. Women, with rolled-down hose and bobbed hair,
finally won their right to vote.
Mineral City’s “day in the sun”
unfortunately was fading fast. George Leckner and Alfred Davis
had checked out the lush Sandy Township spot in 1840. Those
pioneer trailblazers recognized the volume and quality of the
coal and clay. “We’ll buy us 300 acres of land, make a deal
with the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad. This will make a
fine mineral point!” Davis said. It was! The partners laid
out a 40 plot allotment and Mineral Point took root in twelve
short years. Davis’ son, W.L., was an industrious contractor
and developer. Farmers were moving to town.
In 1864, C. Edward Holden, a New
York stock broker, no less, arrived on the scene. The bearded
dynamo soon had the Point trembling with stone quarries, clay
and coal mines, slaughter houses, stores, and hotels. The
phenomenal growth and opportunities brought a chain of
enterprising seekers. Holden called the town “my little
Chicago” and started “The Mineral Point Express”- a newspaper to
tell it like it was. Soon there was a bank, a city hall,
attorneys and undertakers, barbers and blacksmiths. The one
room school grew to four classrooms plus a stage.
In 1872 the town was incorporated
and recognized as a metropolis – Mineral City. J. F. Rice
served as the first mayor and Davis even built a grand opera
house. Will Rogers, with slow drawl and dry humor, was one of
the many outstanding celebrities who drew the crowds. In the
summer there was always a carnival, a full season
merry-go-round, and tent shows and gypsies. The band played
loud and often and the baseball team was a red hot winner year
after year. The Bloomer Girls basketball games were equally
impressive. There was even a “Sunken Garden” between the Palace
Block, where the bank and business district was located on Route
800 and Center Street.
So what happened to this beautiful
dream? The country appeared to be prosperous but there was a
drifting “why –worry” apathy in the young city.
Not that God was being ignored. In
1840, even before Leckner and Davis were plotting the town,
fifteen families of German-Swiss immigrants had erected a log
church in the Sandy woodlands. By 1859 the worshippers built
the St. Paul’s Reformed Church on Miner Street, where it stood
for a hundred years! Today, in a fine First Street Sanctuary,
it is known as St. Paul’s Community Church.
The German Lutheran’s didn’t do so
well. Their Miner Street meeting house, built in 1857, was
abandoned and was transformed into a village hall and jail.
Later the fire department used the premises until the new
station was completed in 1966.
The Methodist church, organized in
1872, erected its present brick building in 1874 and the
congregation continues to praise the Lord on Davis Street!
Those of the Catholic faith
originally gathered in homes to worship until a rustic chapel
was built one half mile east of town by the C&P Railroad. It
had deteriorated by 1881 when St. Joseph’s Church in Dover made
Mineral City a mission project. The church on First Street
beside the grade school served the parishioners until 1968 when
they built a new church on Route 800 north of the village.
Today, they worship as Holy Trinity in Zoar.
The United Brethren in Christ
congregation worshipped in a small room between Grant and
Division Streets until they managed to build a square frame
church on Center Street. Several years later the lighthouse
beam flickered out for the Brethren.
Perhaps the clay and coal were
running low. Maybe the younger generation-and those World War I
veterans who had looked at far flung fields- were searching for
greener pastures. In any case, progress was grinding to a
screeching halt. “What’s new?” was a holiness revival!
Rev. Dick and Tillie Albright,
roving fire and brimstone evangelists, had plenty of help
pitching their frayed, leaky tent. Local lumbermen obligingly
hauled in a couple loads of sawdust and, for a few pieces of
penny candy, every kid on the block helped stretch the splintery
planks on wobbly blocks.
It wasn’t a totally new adventure.
Jesus people often stopped in Mineral City but the Albrights had
the old time Nazarene spirit- lusty and loud. Kneeling in the
soggy sawdust for saving grace had a special significance.
Short term, it seemed God was scoring a lot of points. Then the
tent was folded. The fiery preachers turned their glory beam in
a new direction. Promises blew away with the sawdust. Many
converts remembered the splinters more than salvation.
Mary Oberlin, a discontented
Methodist, felt the weight of the cross. “You know, Charles,”
she told her postmaster husband, “God WANTS us to start a
holiness church in Mineral City!”
“Suppose you’re fixing to buy that
dilapidated Brethren box up the street?”
“Would if I had $1100,” the vibrant
lady agreed. “I’m going to pray about it!”
And pray she did! With Ferol
Baldwin, who also hungered for a more personal experience with
the Lord, they not only prayed but they put action behind their
pleas. Dan Lautenschlager, a former neighbor who was active in
Canton’s First Church of the Nazarene, was the middle man. He
gathered friends and thirty people came to a prayer meeting at
the Oberlins. Before the evening ended there were bountiful
blessings and a giant step in faith!
Those eager Christians decided to take their battered kitchen
chairs to Bill Walters' bleak tin shop, south of town by the
railroad tracks, "an' have us a real church..."
The only music was the train's shrill whistle, reminding them
God was the engineer in charge. Not much heat except for the
warmth in their hearts. The light of the Lord shone round about
and all was well with their souls.
By the new year, 1927, Pittsburg District had heard the good
news. Dr. H. Howard Sloan accepted seven charter members as a
nucleus of faith. They were William Farnsworth, Mary Oberlin,
Ida Glenn Miller, Anna Cogoun, Jane Neidlinger, and Ferol and
Rosetta Baldwin.
By assembly time in April, Rev. Albert B. Schneider, who had
taken charge of the flock, reported 15 members with an average
of 30 in Sunday School. The young church was on its way! That
was the year Charles Edwards, the new pastor, negotiated with
United Brethren in Christ whose Center Street congregation had
disappeared. They paid $25 down and moved into the Center
Street church.
The crumbling cathedral wasn't the greatest, as chapels go.
Water-spotted, tattered wallpaper drooped from the grooved
ceiling. The bare pointed windows seemed symbolic but there
were plenty of splinters when worshippers kneeled by the rough
wooden altar. Four iron piped gas lights made it possible to
see the words in the ragged donated hymnals when someone could
be found to pump the ancient organ and the ornate piano. The
bell had a good clear ring. People came!
Wall Street’s Black Thursday in 1929 brought the fateful
Depression with hunger and pain. Now there was plenty of time
to remodel the church, but no money! Inch by inch, year by
year, the struggle continued. On October 5th, 1936
(after paying a total of $2800) the deed was surrendered. Still
to come was a procession of mind boggling repairs, improvements,
and renovations.
Following Pastor Schneider, Pastor Charles Edwards and wife
Alice served until 1930. Thereafter, Nazarene ministers and
their loyal, caring helpmates have been: John and Leila Guy
(1930-36), Douglas and Ida Stewart (1936-39), Robert and Marie
Morris (1939-44), Clarence and Dorthy Lindeman (1944-46), Floyd
and Blanche Williams (1946-54), Otis and Josephine Mills
(1954-62), Clayton and Florence Stouffer (1962-68), David and
Veramae Aldridge (1968-74), James and Carol Hall (1974-77),
Allen and Donna Arner (1977-84), Richard and Dorthy Phelps
(1984-89), William and Judith May (1990-92), Ronald and Joan
Whittenberger (1992-95), Brian and Melissa Grimm (1995-1998),
and Fred and Gigi Blauser (1999-2009). Pastor Terry Passmore is
the current senior pastor with his wife Kelly serving diligently
by his side.
Today the Church stands a beautiful building. Through the years
many improvements have been made, featuring a large foyer and
new offices, a beautiful sanctuary including padded pews, a
vibrant nursery, kitchen, large fellowship hall, and many rooms
for Sunday School Classes, Kids Konnection, 4-H, boy scouts, and
other community groups to use. In 1998, the Church purchased
the current parsonage located to the left of the church, turning
the former parsonage into the Church Annex, which now contains a
5 room teen center, as well as rooms for guests to stay in. The
church later purchased property located behind the church and
created overflow parking, as well as land for the Church Campus
to extend as more room was needed.
So many people struggled so
earnestly, through trials and tribulations, wars and worries,
death and desolation. Not only for a beautiful church, but
laboring for the Master and glorifying His precious name. Not a
slim sheet of paper, but a whole set of encyclopedias would be
required to list all the stars who generously have given, and
still give their time and talents for the glory of God and the
Mineral City Church of the Nazarene.
May the next 85 years find His
church “Watching and waiting, looking above- Filled with His
goodness, lost in His love…”
