Birmingham Churches and Their Cornerstones 53

Pilgrim Lutheran Church was erected in 1930 on the corner of 1st Street and 4th Terrance North in Birmingham’s Smithfield neighborhood. It was established in 1923 as part of the Synodical Confernce’s mission work among African Americans. The church’s exterior brickwork includes colored tiles depicting the symbols of the four evangelists. For more on the congregation’s history, see its entry in Bhamwiki.

The church’s date stone does not appear on a corner, but instead in the middle of the wall beneath the altar window, perhaps intentionally reflecting the practice of placing a church’s foundatoin stone beneath its altar as was done in 1907 at Washington National Cathedral.

Read this first post for more on this series on Birmingham churches and their cornerstones.

Map of Posts in this Project