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Religion in Warren County and Bowling Green The church has always been an important part of the social as well as the spiritual lives of Warren Countians. On occasion the church building doubled as a school and a public meeting place. A number of Warren County's earliest churches were "union churches" where congregations of different denominations met together as well as separately. Reputedly, the first church in the county was the Old Union Church established in the mid-1790s near Allen County. In 1804 nine people organized the Providence Knob Church near present day Rockfield. In 1814 the original Green River Union Meeting House near Richardsville was founded. The 1845 structure, built for Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists who worshipped there, was built by French Huguenots and is the only Huguenot National Landmark in Kentucky. Mt. Olivet Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded in the early part of the eighteenth century near Plum Springs. The present structure was built in 1845 by local brick masons Veet Patillo and C. A. Carter. One of the most unusual religious groups in early Warren County were the Shakers. Although the main community was in Logan County, in 1817 the Shakers purchased a farm on Drakes Creek called Mill Point where they operated a gristmill and sawmill. African Americans worshipped with whites prior to the Civil War but were relegated to segregated areas in the sanctuary. One early black church in Bowling Green was the African Baptist Church. Formed in 1838 the congregation bought land and built a church in 1844. In 1872 the name was changed to the First Colored Baptist Church. Fire destroyed an 1873 structure in 1898. Two years later the present building at Fourth and State streets was built. Today the church is known as State Street Baptist. Built in 1872, Taylor's Chapel American Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the few remaining buildings with links to Bowling Green's nineteenth-century black community. It is located at 314 East 7th Avenue. New Bethel Baptist Church was built in 1890. This structure has significant ties to African American history in Bowling Green because is also served as one of the earliest black schools in Warren County. The white Baptist church was organized in Bowling Green in 1818 as the United Baptist Church. In the 1850s they built a brick building near downtown, and in 1913 the congregation built a large church on the corner of Twelfth and Chestnut streets. Because the building was constructed of Warren County limestone, which bleaches white in the sun, the church was called the "white temple." A Methodist Society was organized in Bowling Green in 1819, and one year later they built a church on Center Street. In 1844 the congregation divided over slavery and states rights, and the local church became the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The factions remained divided until 1939. The present church at 1101 State Street was built in 1869 of Warren County limestone. The Presbyterian Church was founded in 1819 and the first church was built on the site of what is now Pioneer Cemetery. After a fire in the 1830s, the present structure at 1003 State Street was built. The Episcopal congregation formed in 1844 and built a church on east Main by 1847. The structure was used as a hospital during the Civil Was and was eventually torn down by soldiers in order to use the brick for chimneys in their tents. Another structure was built on College Street by 1867, and the present church on State Street was erected in 1912 of Warren County limestone. Reverend Joseph DeVries
came to Bowling Green in 1858 to minister to the 1,000 Catholics
who were primarily Irish workers on the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad. A small frame church was built in 1859. Construction
on St. Joseph Catholic Church at 426-434 Church Street began
immediately. During the Civil War soldiers of both armies used
the church. |
