February 2026.
Shiloh Baptist, a historic church in King-Lincoln Bronzeville, has been orphaned with the construction of I-71. Once centered on a major Black commercial street (Mt. Vernon Avenue), its connection to downtown Columbus has been severed, and Mt. Vernon now hooks southwest towards Spring Street, bypassing this church entirely.
Shiloh Baptist Church is located at 720 Mt. Vernon Avenue in the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by I-71 to the north and west, Mt. Vernon Avenue and apartments to the south, and a Columbus rowhouse to the east.
History
Shiloh Baptist is the third-oldest Black church in Columbus. (The two oldest are St. Paul A.M.E. and Second Baptist.) The congregation was founded in 1869, as 40 members separated from Second Baptist Church. Though Columbus had 573 Black residents in 1840 (a year after Second Baptist was founded), this number had tripled by 1870, with 1,847 citizens. This growth was part of the impetus of Shiloh Baptist’s founding. Its first pastor was Rev. L. B. Moss.
Sketch of the original Shiloh Baptist. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
Shiloh Baptist’s first church building was located at the northeast corner of 4th Street and Gay Street in downtown Columbus, and at first they used the second floor of the building (the first was a grocery store). Under Rev. George Scott’s leadership, the church’s pastor from 1880 to 1884, the congregation expanded and a new church building formerly used by Christie Methodist Episcopal Chapel was acquired on Cleveland Avenue (8th Street at that time) near its intersection with Spring Street. This pocket of Columbus was where many Black residents lived, along with Irish immigrants who attended church nearby at St. Patrick’s.
Snippet of the 1887 Sanborn map depicting Shiloh Baptist’s second church building, the first on Cleveland Avenue. (Library of Congress)
Shiloh Baptist’s second pastor of note was Rev. William Cradic, who expanded the church building of Cleveland Avenue and began publishing the church’s first bulletin, Our Journal. Cradic served for a decade, and after his death, he was succeeded by Rev. W. L. Burr. Burr founded Shiloh Baptist’s first mission on Grant Avenue, which eventually became its own congregation known as Mt. Olivet Baptist (now located at 428 East Main Street). He built a new church on the site of the old one at Cleveland Avenue in 1901, which was a Romanesque Revival design. Under Rev. Burr’s tenure, the congregation’s first choir was established by Nettie Anderson Black, and the church’s mission efforts continued to expand.
Colorized photo of the second Cleveland Avenue church. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
Columbus’s Black population kept climbing in the early 20th century due to the Great Migration. Nearly 13,000 citizens of Columbus in 1910 were Black. Rev. Burr’s successor, George Davis, created the Shiloh Publishing Company for the church’s writings in 1917. Under Rev. Davis’s leadership and the ever-expanding congregation, the Cleveland Avenue church was sold to the Seventh Day Adventists in 1921 and Shiloh Baptist moved eastward. Columbus’s Near East Side had become the epicenter of the Black community in the city, hence this decision. The nearby Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway employed Black residents (who otherwise struggled to find jobs due to discrimination), and two major thoroughfares of King-Lincoln Bronzeville, Mt. Vernon Avenue and Long Street, became lively commercial strips of Black-owned businesses.
Shiloh Baptist under construction. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
Construction of Shiloh Baptist’s current church building was spearheaded by new Rev. James Burks, who became the pastor in 1922. Its site was on Mt. Vernon Avenue, one of the aforementioned business centers of the area. Ground was broken on April 23, 1922, though it seems like the parish was critical of the building’s location, design, etc. The congregation held its first service inside the basement in August 1923. The remainder of the church was built in 1924 by the O. A. Day Construction Company, owned by a woman named Olive A. Day who built several churches across the country. (This was extremely unusual for the time.) Interestingly, Rev. Burks stipulated that he would be the construction superintendent, and he reportedly had a role in the building’s design. Since its architect is unknown, I’ll credit Burks with its design instead. Shiloh Baptist Church is a Gothic Revival design and was completed at a cost of $210,000.
Postcard of the church’s interior from 1909. (CardCow)
Shiloh Baptist struggled during the Great Depression, but they nonetheless continued to offer aid to the hungry and jobless citizens who lived nearby, reportedly feeding hundreds of people a day with soup lines. In 1932, the church defaulted on its mortgage payments, and Bellefontaine Building & Loan began to foreclose on the building before having a change of heart and selling it back to the congregation. The Depression also did not stop Shiloh Baptist from founding a mission in Africa, either.
After Rev. Burks retired in 1935, his replacement Rev. Sandy Ray continued Shiloh Baptist’s work and growth. 300 new members joined during Ray’s nine-year tenure, and he hosted several important events at the church, such as the National Baptist Sunday School and the National Convention of the NAACP. Rev. Burks was also granted the $1,200 of pay he missed during the Great Depression in a Pastors’ Recognition Day held by the church. Shiloh Baptist’s community-based contributions at this time were a local nursery school and aid for 300 victims of the Ohio River’s flood in 1937.
Parishioners outside the church c. 1950s. (WOSU)
Rev. Ray moved to Brooklyn in 1944 and was succeeded by Rev. James Parrish, who held the pastor position for the next 35 years. In 1947, Rev. Parrish established the Shiloh Federal Credit Union, which was especially intended to give loans for local Black citizens for cars and home improvement, as they faced discrimination from traditional banks at the time. During his tenure, 2,000 new members joined Shiloh Baptist, the church paid off its mortgage, and a scholarship fund was created for parishioners’ children.
Despite the continued growth of Shiloh Baptist, the 1960s led to rapid change for the congregation. The construction of I-71 immediately to the west demolished many nearby homes and isolated the church from downtown Columbus. The city of Columbus originally wanted to seize Shiloh Baptist and demolish it, but the congregation refused to sell. Additionally, with more civil rights being granted to Black citizens, the more affluent residents of the Near East Side moved out of the neighborhood to places they were formerly forbidden to live in. The church clung to life despite the decline of the surrounding neighborhood.
The church in 2004. (NRHP listing)
In the early 1990s, Shiloh Baptist experienced a major rift, as the pastor (Rev. C. Dexter Wise) wanted to build a new church in a different location. Rev. Wise and 70 members ultimately left to found a new congregation known as Faith Ministries, and the remaining parishioners stayed in the Mt. Vernon Avenue location. In 1993, Rev. Otha Gilyard became the church’s pastor. Rev. Gilyard led the church to build an addition onto its north side in 2002, known as the Education Wing. In 2004, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Shiloh Baptist remains an invaluable asset for homeless, impoverished, and imprisoned citizens of Columbus. Some of the sources cited by the NRHP listing extol the value of Black churches in the community--in particular, Dr. Kenneth Hamilton, a professor of Black history at Ohio State, wrote: “The Black church…has been the main-stay while other institutions have faltered or failed Black people. It has been the foundation of hope in America…the Black church is the only institution that has been owned, controlled and guided by Black people for over 200 years.”
Photos
East facade of the church from Mt. Vernon Avenue:
Very asymmetric and picturesque massing here.
This east window is original and a Von Gerichten Art Glass Studio design. However, it’s not looking so hot lately:
The Postmodern education wing, which was built in 2002:
It takes some cues from the original building but falls a little flat in the process. A big difference is a lack of depth, which the 1923 church has with its wildly varying wall planes and recessed panels.
Another view, with the projecting tower:
The facade was brilliantly lit by the bright winter sun:
It is in very remarkable condition for its age--the stone shines as brightly as it probably did when it was first installed.
These doors are replacements, and though they are of higher quality than most renovations to these kinds of churches, I think the red is a bit too jarring compared to the earthy tones of the masonry.
Loving the super eclectic Gothic font used here.
The fine, English-inspired rose window:
I’m unsure of the glass’s age, but its wood framing is definitely original. The NRHP listing only goes into detail about the east and west windows. However, given its similarity to the windows elsewhere on the building, it seems to be some of the historic glass installed by Von Gerichten.
Taller southeast tower:
Its setbacks have a bit of Art Deco-ish spice to them.
The cornerstone is embedded in this tower. Despite the church’s intricacies, it is very simple:
The southwest tower is much shorter, with a boxy, slightly asymmetrical appearance:
The parapet has a sort of castellated appearance, but only on the corners.
Mt. Vernon Avenue hits a dead end right in front of this church--very Silversteinesque. Where the Municipal Investment Ends, maybe?
Nearby Ohio Historical Marker:
Anyways, I stood about where that fence was, I-71 snaking its way through the two incommunicable halves of the neighborhood, to take this nice picture of the entire church:
One of the nave’s smaller lancet windows--note its similarity to the rose window:
The west transept:
This window was replaced in the 1960s with its current design. That’s probably around the same time the vintage sign above was put in, too.
Hmm…it looks like the letters once had neon tubes in front of them. Definitely in character with the area. (They were removed after 2004.)
This area seems to be the rectory, and it has a small chapel, too:
Education wing, devoid of all character here:
I guess the only people seeing it are idiots speeding down I-71, anyways. Their discerning eyes can’t quite make out the architectural intricacies seen elsewhere on this building. You’d think being right next to a major highway would have done more damage to Shiloh Baptist, but it’s still going strong to this day.
Sources:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71988591
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g066561887/?sp=40&st=image
https://www.cardcow.com/204169/columbus-ohio-shiloh-baptist-church/
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/african/id/31847
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/13605/rec/1
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