VOLUNTEERS WORKING TO SAVE 1907 CHURCH BUILDING
The efforts of about a dozen volunteers who are sawing and hammering to save the structure of a crumbling Parkville church are proof that the historic building symbolizes more than a nearly-abandoned house of worship.
The volunteers, who work at Washington Chapel C.M.E. Church, located at 1137 West St. in Parkville, are mostly members of construction crews of retired employees from a Kansas City engineering firm and members of another local church. The engineers and architects, who often bring their own tools, hail from Black and Veatch and the others, also retired professionals, are members of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
The groups routinely volunteer in the community and decided on the Washington church project when they discovered Washington Chapel. The church’s few remaining members tried to maintain the church, but finally were forced to stop meeting there before the pandemic in 2020.
Volunteers have used a $160,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund to purchase materials to do much of the work. The congregation was among 31 churches throughout the country, which was awarded money, wrote Barbara Schell Luetke, a member who has written letters and press releases used in soliciting funds.
They arrive each Thursday at the 1907 native limestone structure which is precariously perched atop a hill in a previously segregated African American area of Parkville, Luetke wrote. Prominent leaders of the area’s African American community were members, including the mother of sisters Dr. Cora Douglass Thompson and Alcorama “Pearl” Douglass Spencer. The two, along with another sister, Lucille H. Douglass, who lives in Kansas City, are main drivers of the restoration effort and grew up in Parkville.
Thompson and Spencer still live across the street from the church on the old family homestead property, atop what was a chicken coup, Thompson said. Growing up, they attended church there with their mother and grandmother during the 1940s and 50s after the family moved to Parkville in 1941. Their father taught at the all-black school located in a brick building across from the church, said Thompson, who acts as the church’s treasurer. Spencer said the church “is very significant in our family’s genealogy, in the community of Parkville and the history of the black community in Parkville.”
Sister (Lucille) Douglass also is chair of the board of directors for the Banneker School Foundation and historic site museum and is working to convert the former segregated black school in the neighborhood into an area museum of African American history.
The sisters agreed the chapel would be a welcome addition to the community and could be used as a meeting and event center when not being used as a place of worship. They hope some younger church members eventually will return and help breathe new life into the historic landmark.
Lisa Wittmeyer, curator of the Ben Ferrel Museum in Platte City, called Washington Chapel a local “gem” and said the renovation will help “preserve local history in a tangible way.” The two-story building, which has about 1,200 square feet per floor, was constructed in no particular style, said Mike Scarborough, an architect who is leading the project as a volunteer manager. “They made do with what they had,” he said during a recent interview while volunteers strategized about next steps amid buzzing saws.
The church acquired the name of Washington after founding members William and Angeline (Rucker) Washington, who married in 1855 in the Presbyterian Church in Parkville, according to historical documents. The Rev. George Woodward married the couple despite marriages between African Americans being illegal in Missouri at the time.
The chapel soon won’t be the only historic building to carry the name Washington. A committee working on behalf of the Park Hill School District recently decided to name the district’s 12th elementary school, which will open in August 2025, after Angeline Washington.
“The committee wanted to express the story of Angeline through this perspective,” they wrote in a message recorded on the district website: “her life as an enslaved woman…to a freed woman who married, owned land, had children, pioneered educational and religious opportunity and bonded a community.”
Scarborough speculated about how the structure at 1137 West Street was conceived and built. The property was owned by Park College and the college president at the time loaned the purchase price of $1,866 to the black community, which they paid back over time, according to Luetke’s research.
The church and Park buildings were constructed of limestone, which is native to the area and was readily abundant. Thompson and Spencer said a limestone quarry was located directly under the chapel. During the early 1900s, the builders would have worked to construct the church by hand. They also could have carried some limestone via horse drawn carriage, Scarborough said. (If stone were brought from further away, they would have used the nearby train or a Missouri River barge, he said.)
“If I’m building a church, and I’ve got no money, I’m not going to get them (materials) from too far away because it would cost more,” he said.
The ties between what is now Park University, and the church are many. During her research, Luetke learned that Park students, who worked to pay for their room and board in the school’s early days, helped build the chapel. They collaborated with church members who were freed slaves and had been worshiping in vacant buildings in downtown Parkville as early as the 1870s. But the white residents of Parkville eventually drove out the blacks, because they objected to blacks being downtown, Thompson said.
So far, volunteers have accomplished a lot, replacing a crumbling concrete floor at the entrance and throughout the building’s adjoining fellowship hall, re-wiring an old electrical system that once sparked a fire and adding new supports to bolster the church spire that was in danger of collapsing. The church’s stairs leading to the bell tower were deteriorated and, after doing repairs, reinforcing the tower, and installing a longer rope, the bell now is easily operable as passersby pull the rope, Scarborough said. Twelve of the church’s oversized windows are embellished with decorative stained glass, paid for by families in honor of lost loved ones, some of whom were early church founders, Douglass said.
Scarborough speculated that those who constructed the building ran out of the type of limestone used on most of the church. The second style of limestone used near the church’s entrance was a different variety that was more susceptible to breakage and volunteers are working to replace that material with more durable limestone, he said.
Scarborough said he first became aware of the church because of his affiliation with a local scout troop. The scouts and leaders worked to clear weeds after city officials issued a citation and the group constructed a bench on church property in an Eagle scout project. Scarborough said he noticed the church’s interesting architectural style and the deterioration while on site and offered to help.
Thompson spoke about remembering her grandmother cooking on an old wood stove, salvaged from the structure, which will stand in a place of prominence following renovation. Thompson added that she can’t praise the volunteers enough. “People have been amazing,” she said of Scarborough and the other volunteer renovators.
Scarborough estimated the project will run out of funds in January or February and more money is needed to finish the restoration. Donations can be mailed to Washington Chapel CME Church, 1137 West St., Parkville, MO 64152 or via paypal.me/washchapel.
