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1 The Urban Challenge Dotting the landscape of modern Richmond, Virginia, venerable churches stand as monuments to the city’s past. Less conspicuous than the numerous Civil War statues, these gentle edi¤ces make an equally emphatic claim on the city’s heritage and re®ect a signi¤cant, continuing stream of community and regional culture. Yet only two Richmond churches have consistently gained historical attention. On Church Hill, in the heart of old Richmond, St. John’s Episcopal Church is famous for its Revolutionary War era meetings. Near the grounds of Virginia’s Capitol, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is renowned as the religious home to Confederate leaders, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. St. John’s and St. Paul’s have sustained an important presence in the community in the twentieth century. Elsewhere downtown on a Sunday morning , a person may still worship in the historic buildings of Leigh Street Baptist , Second Presbyterian, and Centenary Methodist. Atop Oregon Hill farther west, Pine Street Baptist and stunningly beautiful St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church stand as testimonies to vibrant working-class congregations. From Monroe Park west through the popular early-twentieth-century residential neighborhood now known as “the Fan,” the contemporary faithful continue to worship in sanctuaries built in an earlier era. At such churches as First English Evangelical Lutheran, St. James’s Episcopal, Hanover Avenue Christian Church, and First Baptist, Sunday services occur with a backdrop of history. To the north, along spacious streets, once-suburban Ginter Park houses Baptist , Methodist, Presbyterian, and Disciples of Christ congregations, which emerged in the century’s ¤rst decades, as well as Union Theological Seminary/ Presbyterian School of Christian Education. On Richmond’s northern periphery stands Emmanuel Episcopal, once a secluded rural church tied to the city as the ¤nal stop on the streetcar line and connected by its in®uential parishioners , the Bryan family. Across the James River in Southside Richmond, music still ascends from the area’s oldest Methodist congregation, Central Methodist. In the same vicinity, once primarily an industrial community called Manchester, Bainbridge Street Baptist remains as a link to the early twentieth century. These active congregations provide the most direct ties to the city’s religious heritage, but a circuit of Richmond offers many more opportunities to touch the town’s past by visiting its churches. The former structures of Monumental Episcopal, Third Presbyterian Church, and Trinity Methodist whisper reminders of an earlier downtown prominence. And such churches as Trinity, Seventh Street Christian, All Saints Episcopal, First Presbyterian, Grove Avenue Baptist, and Second Baptist have transported their past identities to new sites. Even churches which have merged or have changed their names remember their antecedents. For example, Reveille Methodist traces its roots to an earlier downtown Union Station Methodist Church, and River Road Methodist recalls its origins in Broad Street Methodist Church of a bygone era. The buildings of the University of Richmond carry the names of its Baptist founders. At ¤rst glance the old names and the old structures might serve as mere reminders of a seemingly simpler, distant time with its own set of delights and defects. Richmond religious leaders of the early twentieth century would have shuddered at such a verdict. They strove to adapt religious ideas and institutions to the changing environment of their urban South as well as to make their religion accessible and relevant to the inhabitants of a growing city. It is the central argument of this book that they were impressively successful in their efforts. Today a sprawling East Coast automotive corridor threatens to submerge Richmond into a cultural landscape increasingly indistinguishable from Boston to Miami. Modern travelers arrive in Richmond after swift journeys over intricate networks of interstate highways or after rapid jet airline ®ights. Before penetrating to the heart of Richmond, drivers wind their way through thickets of burgeoning suburbs, with their familiar appearance and their even more familiar fast-food chains, convenience stores, and shopping malls. By contrast, early-twentieth-century Richmond existed as an urban enclave in a rural state. After a lengthy railroad ride, some travelers entered the city at the new downtown Main Street Station. That location placed them near factories sprinkled along the nearby James River and between Church Hill to the east and Capitol Hill to the west, two residential centers steadily surrendering space to of¤ce buildings and retail stores. Country kinfolk drove their horses and wagons to the city. Local residents could reach most destinations on foot. Streetcars provided transportation...

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