Ensley Highlands Methodist Church

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Ensley Highlands Methodist Church was a Methodist congregation organized in 1914 in the Ensley Highlands neighborhood and dissolved around 2012. From 1952 it was located in a Jacobean style brick building at 2700 Avenue S Ensley, on the corner of Ensley Five Points West Avenue. It was part of the North Alabama Conference.

The church got its start as a Sunday School which began meeting in the community in 1911. The membership organized three years later with W. G. Gaston as pastor. It engaged architect J. F. Slater to draw up plans for a $65,000 brick and stone building in 1928.

Ensley Highlands Methodist organized a building committee, headed by C. D. Swann, to construct its long-planned new sanctuary. The cornerstone of the new building was laid on February 4, 1951 and the church held its first services there on March 16, 1952 under the leadership of Rev. James E. Harris. Four years later the church commissioned architects Greer, Holmquist & Chambers to design a new Sunday School building along with renovations to the existing church campus. The Steel City Construction Company was awarded the $55,000 contract.

The church closed its doors around 2012. Its feature stained-glass window, depicting Christ kneeling in prayer, was relocated to Palmerdale United Methodist Church. Warriors of the Word Church briefly used the building, but soon left it vacant.

The vacant church building was damaged in a June 5, 2023 fire and subsequently demolished.

External links

References

  • "The History of Ensley Highlands United Methodist Church, 1914-1974" (1974) Birmingham, AL: The church