1st Presbyterian, Fordyce

The building, on the National Register of Historic Places, is 100 years old this year, although the church was organized in 1883. 

The windows, I'm afraid, are badly in need of fresh paint.

There's some nice Victorian scrollwork in the stained glass. 

I'm at a loss to explain the deterioration of the lead.  It's not a simple matter of being exposed to the elements.  Since the damage is around the solder joints, I suspect that an acid flux was used when the windows were built and was never adequately washed off.

1st Baptist, Altheimer

This picture was taken early last November. The scaffolding was set up to repair a set of stained glass windows that were damaged about a month previous in a hailstorm.

After replacing about fifteen pieces of glass,
I snapped this picture from inside the attic.

One of the colorful side windows in the sanctuary.

Liberty Hill Baptist, Little Rock

My brother and I restored this set of windows last month.

The purple Waterglass was introduced in the 1980's, so they're not that old. They were just installed poorly and were falling out of the frames.

We built the door panels to match the windows above about five years ago.

The church has a beautifully decorated vaulted ceiling.
I believe the sanctuary dates to 1965.

The church was formally the home for Asbury United Methodist Church, which moved west in 1982.

Holy Rosary Catholic, Stuttgart

The stained glass in this church is most unusual. The glass itself is beautiful blown Blenko glass, but instead of lead binding the pieces, it's held together with epoxy resin, much like dalle-de-verre, or faceted glass. Dalle is 3/4" thick, but Blenko sheet glass at its thickest is about 1/4" thick and at its thinnest is 1/16" thick. My visits to the church to repair some of the broken pieces proved to be a challenge, but after 39 years, it's nice to be able to learn something new.

church info

Trinity Chapel, Carlisle

Window designed by CiCi Davidson, built by me.
Merry Christmas

Holly Grove Presbyterian, Monroe County

This church turns 130 years old next year.

It's on the National Historic Register.

The windows show a fine mix of green, amber and blue opalescents, cut randomly. I'm sure they're beautiful from the inside, but they look great in reflected light as well.

First United Methodist, Helena

This photograph is eleven months old. I took it when I was working on the former Temple Beth El, which is a block away. I stopped at the church office to ask if they would entertain a bid to replace all that nasty opaque plastic in front of their stained glass windows. I was about a month too late, as they had just signed a contract with Soos Stained Glass to do just that.

I read on the church's Facebook page that the job was finished in November. I'm sorry I don't have an updated picture, but I imagine it now looks as though the church has once again opened its eyes.

On the one hand, it's a shame that so many congregations bought into the fevered pitches of Plexiglas salespeople in the 70s and 80s to cover up their windows with plastic. Churches only wanted to protect their windows and maybe realize some energy savings in the process. All too often what they ended up with was a covering that soon became yellow and opaque and was usually not properly ventilated either, so that condensation tended to form, drip, and rot sills.

On the other hand, it's good that so many churches these days are reversing the trend. Some are going back to no protective covering at all, but most opt to cover their windows with vented tempered glass. The windows can once more breathe and the stained glass can be seen again from the outside.

But even with the blind windows, this is a pretty church. I'm afraid, though, I know little of its history.

First Presbyterian, Dardanelle

Merry Christmas

Faith Landmark Miss. Baptist, McCrory

This is my personal favorite of all the church windows I have designed and built. I wanted it to look like a quilt.

Can you tell the church is in farm country?

First Methodist, Beebe

You'll need binoculars to read the memorial inscription.
church web site

Meadowlake Miss. Baptist, Jones Mills

detail of faceted glass window

Cumberland Presbyterian, Searcy

Someone's been working on the bell tower of this 106 year old church.

Nice transom window.

1st Presbyterian, Conway

The steel cross was installed in 2005.

stained glass trellis vine in pastor's office

church web site

1st United Methodist, Searcy

A lot of nice architectural features in this church, built in 1872. The sanctuary was built to seat 400 at a time when Searcy's entire population was 600.

Here's another overglaze application over a tracery window. Unlike the Morrilton Baptist church window in the last post, this one utilizes all straight lines.

church web site

1st Baptist, Morrilton

A Baptist church often looks like nothing other than a Baptist church.

The overglaze grid of aluminum and glass follows the lines of the wood tracery. There are a surprising number of overglaze application that ignore the window design altogether.

church web site

The Blue, Hempstead County

Copyright 2008, from Abandoned Arkansas, by Jim King

You see the old church, and you think nothing of it. At first.

‘Did I see what I thought I saw?’ you say to yourself, and without thinking at all, you turn down the side street that leads to the parking lot.

Parking lot is a grand term for this field. No one has parked here for years.

No congregation, anyway.

The weeds brush your thighs as you walk across what was once a churchyard. You feel the soft sound and think, ‘Ahhh.’

What you saw, what drew you to it in the first place, isn’t the lines. It isn’t the Greek Revival austerity, the twin doorways, the perfectly preserved windows. It isn’t the massive belfry. It isn’t the wonderful location, set in the crook of the road, where you’d have to slow down just enough to want to visit the building.

What you saw was a wink of cobalt. A blue so intense, yet so elusive, that you had to know what made it happen.

And once alongside the church, you see.

God, but you want to be in there. (You chuckle at the inside joke. God indeed).

It’s not the draw of the church, and it’s not your desire to worship. You’ve been an atheist all your life, and the Christian Church holds nothing for you.

But this. Oh, this.

It’s the blue. It’s The Blue.

The windows are finely filigreed with lead and dark glass, and though some is of other colors, The Blue rules all.

You walk up to the one of the windows, and you see what made you come here.

The light comes from the windows on the other side, and though it comes from blue, and so loses much of its intensity, there is no doubt in your mind that the blue coming from the window colors your face. You feel it. You know it’s there. And the contentedness it projects makes you wonder.

Did the people inside experience this?

You feel bad for those that haven’t, and probably never will.

Some atheist you are.

from Jim's notes:
The church was in Columbus, in Hempstead County. A friend told me about Columbus, and I included it in my tour of southwest Arkansas, where I was nearly overwhelmed with the fecundity of abandonment. I’ve included no less than six stories inspired by stores, schools, homes, churches, storm cellars, and sheds from the town and its surrounds. Every window in the church was intact at the time of my visit in 2008. It was crushed by a falling tree (probably the one at the right of the photograph) six months after the shot was taken.

First Presbyterian, Dardanelle

Dardanelle's first Presbyterian church was built in 1856 and was burned by Federal troops during the Civil War. A second church was built to serve the community until 1914, when the current church was dedicated.

Raising the money needed to pay for the construction was a labor of love on behalf of the Ladies Missionary Society of First Presbyterian. The following is excerpted from "A Brief History of the First Presbyterian Church: 'The Church Built by Women.'"

"During the first year of this effort, the ladies gave each member a quarter dollar. Like the servants in the Bible, they were to invest this money 'in ways to make it multiply.' One woman bought a yard of calico and bought an apron which she sold for a dollar. Some ladies raised as much as $5.00. They held bake sales, sold manufacturers samples, and some rode the Ola train to Clarksville during peach picking season and added their wages to the building fund. Soon, the 'money-making ladies' had caught the fancy of the whole town and Dardanelle waited to see what they would do next.

"Some of the women were from 'the best families,' and had never worked at anything more strenuous than embroidery or flower arrangement, but when Calvin Batson, a prominent farmer and a member of the church, jokingly suggested that he would give them a job picking cotton, they donned sunbonnets and headed for the field. The business houses closed their doors for the day, and the men turned out in a body to watch them pick. They cheered the ladies on from their seats on split rail fences, while they leisurely ate their picnic dinners from lard buckets.

"Tom Grissom, the town photographer, made a photograph of the event, which appeared in in numerous state and national publications, and was even made into a postcard. It caught the eye of Fedinand T. Hopkins, a New York philanthropist, who subsequently sent a sizeable donation of money."

This beautiful stained glass window of an angel is dedicated to Mr. Hopkins.

"From the outset, the members were determined that the building be paid for at the time of its completion. The total cost was $8,978.57 and when the First Presbyterian Church... was dedicated on May 10th, 1914, there was just 83 cents left in the fund."

The brochure quoted was compiled by Betsy Snyder Harris, a woman I met a few weeks ago, whose spirit and enthusiasm for the church and Dardanelle's history is contagious. I spent a day there last week re-securing bracers bars to some of the windows and I consider it an honor to work on the oldest church building in Dardanelle. Thanks to Betsy and Pastor Kelly Pearson.

church web site

Pulaski Heights UMC, Little Rock

rose window
church web site

Dempsey Film Group, Little Rock

Yesterday's post showed creative re-use by a church; today's features creative re-use of a church. Originally Second Presbyterian (currently in Pleasant Valley), the Dempsey Film Group moved in 17 years ago. Downstairs is for reception and offices, while production studios are upstairs. Dempsey put a lot of effort into balancing the restoration of the building with meeting the needs of a modern film production facility.

Even the sign is an example of creative re-use.

This is the central south facing set of stained glass windows. I'm pleased to say I helped in the restoration of some of these panels.

Update (July 2011) - Dempsey Film Group announced recently that it is to cease operations. The church will be sold.

First Presbyterian, Benton

One thing that most of these pictures share is the constant presence of electrical lines. Will cities ever put them underground?

pastel diamond gothic arch windows
church web site