City/Town: • Pershing |
Location Class: • Church |
Built: • ~1920 | Abandoned: • 1960s |
Status: • Abandoned |
Photojournalist: • Emily Cowan |
Based on the stonework of the old Victory Baptist Church in Pershing its construction is estimated to have been in the late 1920s. Church records showed that in 1924 the church had about fifty-sixty attendees, twenty-five from Pawhuska and fifteen from nearby Nelogoney. Rev. Nail was elected pastor of the church that year, he had been holding a revival there. Soon after he would move into the parsonage that sits just north of the church. According to more church records, Rev. James Gore was the pastor in 1934 and it can only be assumed that he lived in the parsonage as well. It is constructed of the same rock as the church building but is in much better condition suggesting that it continued as a home after the church’s closure.
Sheryl R. Freeman recollected that her parents attended the Victory Baptist Church back in the 50s and 60s up until its closure. Too young to have very many of her own memories there she did remember that the church closed after the roof failed to be repaired in the 1960s. It continued to deteriorate from there and now remains an outer shell of its former self. The parsonage just north still has its room and appears to be used as storage now.
Gallery Below of Victory Baptist Church
“10 Oct 1924, 6 – The Osage Journal and The Osage County News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/659166682/?terms=first%20baptist%20church%20pershing%20Oklahoma&match=1.
“12 Sep 1924, 8 – The Osage Journal and The Osage County News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/659172935/?terms=first%20baptist%20church%20pershing%20Oklahoma&match=1.
“13 Apr 1934, 4 – The Osage Journal and The Osage County News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/659270638/?terms=baptist%20church%20pershing%20oklahoma&match=1.
“19 Sep 1924, 8 – The Osage Journal and The Osage County News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/659224165/?terms=baptist%20church%20pershing%20oklahoma&match=1.
“2 Mar 1934, 4 – The Osage Journal and The Osage County News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/659268437/?terms=first%20baptist%20church%20pershing%20Oklahoma&match=1.
If you wish to support our current and future work, please consider making a donation or purchasing one of our many books. Any and all donations are appreciated.
Donate to our cause Check out our books!
Amazing how these native stone structures still remain standing
Nice looking pictures
SAD BUT GOOD PICTURES
THanks for posting i have seen this from the road and wondered what it was
I think these are very moving pictures
I appreciate this informative and richly historical article. I applaud their mission toward helping to secure, preserve, and restore these valuable vestiges of our local culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.