The Christian church of Greenville is the first church built in the unique, recognizable, Flanders style. The Gothic-revival building is a transitional structure between the earlier Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Dallas and the First Methodist Episcopal Church South of McKinney built two years later. This is the first of his churches to use the pyramidial roofs on the lesser two towers, although he retained the use of a hexagonal roof on the main tower. Of the towers roofs on the Cumberland church, one was pyramidal, one was conical, and one was hexagonal. The Main tower of the First Christian Church was the first that contained the elements that soon became a signature feature of Flanders' churches. This edifice, located on the corners of Wesley and Washington streets was erected in 1898-99 at a cost of $23,000, but not without great sacrifice from the members of the congregation. One member, Mrs. V.A.King, contributed half of the total cost of the building and its' furnishings, to assure fruition of the project. It was at this time that the church's name was changed from First Christian Church to the name still in use, Central Christian Church. |
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH - 1899 Greenville, Texas |
This wonderful old photograph hints at the role the church played in the lives of its' members. Architecturally, the polychromatic appearance of the building created by later painting is absent here. Note too the design of the brickwork above the beautifully detailed art glass windows. |
The congregation took on another make project in 1985. Faced with a choice of merging with another church or moving and rebuilding, the members took the third choice - rebuild the existing structure, the oldest church structure in the city. The entire building was jacked up and dry rotted boards were replaced with new ones. Bricks were cleaned, mortar was removed to a depth of 3/4 inch and was replaced with new mortar. All the windows were cleaned and recaulked, door and window frames stripped and repainted, and gutters and downspouts repaired or replaced. Inside, the ceiling of the sanctuary was repaired and the whole interior repainted, the original wiring system was removed and replaced with a new one, a new heating and cooling system was installed, and most of the floors were carpeted. The rennovation was completed in1988. |
