LOOKING BACK is a Leader online feature that highlights historic photos. Readers are invited to submit their historic Jefferson County photos for online publication.
Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Crystal City is celebrating its 90th anniversary this month.
The church was founded in 1923, when a group of African-Americans formed a Baptist church. Another group across town was building First Baptist Church, so the new group chose Mount Olive as its name.
That organizing group included Ida and William Underwood, Jake Guess and his wife, Charlie Jackson and his wife, Albert Sergeant and his wife, a Mr. Hayes and a Mrs. Tullock and her husband.
During its first two years, the church met in the Peth House, a large building owned by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. When PPG needed more room, the company gave the church a lot on County Road on which to build.
Jake Guess was credited with leading the fundraising activities, and the church was built. Known as “the little church on top of the hill” because it sat on a high hill that overlooked County Road, the cornerstone was laid in May 1927.
Mount Olive met there until 1968. By that time, the building was beyond further repair and the steps made the church inaccessible to older members.
The old church was torn down and the hill was cut down to street level. A basement was dug and a roof put over it, and plans were made to build a new church. However, the small membership ran into numerous problems in their efforts to build it.
In the meantime, Jesse Harris, a deacon who was the grandson of Jake Guess, kept pushing. According to a church history, on more than a few Sundays, only Harris sat in the basement, singing praises and offering up prayers.
Eventually, water problems made the basement unstable and church officials began to look elsewhere.
The Maul family donated a lot at 136 Lincoln Ave. to the church in 1981, and ground was broken on May 10. In March 1982, the congregation moved into the basement of the new building and met there. On Nov. 21, 1982, church members marched from the old side to the new building in a ceremonial break from its past.
The lot on County Road was sold and now includes a house.
Today, the church has about 60 members.
Mount Olive plans a celebration service following its 11 a.m. service on Sunday, May 26. Additional anniversary events and services will be held throughout the year. For more information, call the church at 636-937-3018.
Send submissions (or if you have any information on this photo) to LOOKING BACK to nvrweakly@aol.com or bring or mail them to the Leader office, 503 N. Second St., Festus (P.O. Box 159, 63028). Please include your name, phone number, a brief description of what’s in the photo and tell us how you came by it. Please also include when it was taken, where and by whom (if known). A new LOOKING BACK photo will be posted each week.
