Birmingham Churches and their Cornerstones 85

West End Methodist Episcopal Church, South was established in 1890 and later erected this building on Cotton Avenue. While a later addition to the buidling it still used by Urban Ministry, part of the United Methodist Church, the older sanctuary building is the home of West End Purity Holiness Church of God. As at West Woodlawn United Methodist Church, the original cornerstone of the church was removed. Here it has been replaced by a blank stone.

This 1920s building is a lovely example of a Gothic-revival auditorium church which sought to make efficent and impressive use of its limited urban site. The West End neighborhood experienced major changes from the 1960s onward. Perhaps the only White-established cogregation that remained in the community is Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. Overall in Birmingham, United Methodists have been able to “stay put” in the city in more neighborhoods than their Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal neighbors have. Thus while there no longer a United Methodist congregation in this street-corner building, there is a ministry and a congregation on the block, the Community Church Without Walls.

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

Map of Posts in this Project

Each site in this project is mapped below. Clicking on an icon will bring up a box with a link to the post on the site. Please use it to browse the collection.

The color and shape of the location markers indicate the character of the cornerstones at each site. Stones like with only the church name and date are light blue. Ones with multiple names are red. If there is more than one stone at the site a shape is used. When the stone has been removed, as here, the icon is gray. Click here for full information on the icons.

Sources

The date of the congregations founding is from Elyton-West End: Birmingham’s First Neighborhood (1982?) available through the Birmingham Public Library Digital Collection.