sketchclub.net: The El Paso Sketch Club: The 1920-1924-1951 First Baptist Church

One of El Paso's handsome Church complexes sits at 805 Montana, designed by early El Paso architects Scott Lehmann and William G. Wuehrmann, with the huge 1951 auditorium added by architect James E. Monroe Jr.

The building began life as the new home to the rapidly growing Central Baptist Church in 1920. On August 5, 1920 they announced that they would be building a new, large structure on the corner of Virginia and Montana, where they had an existing wood-framed chapel already. The plans were to build half of the new building, then hold services there while they demolished their old building and erected the second section. They hired the firm of Lehmann & Wuehrmann to design the new Church, with specific instructions to make it look like the St. Clements Episcopal Church, just a couple of blocks down the street. The contractor for this first build was L.S. Glaser, who was the Superintendent of construction at the recently completed Popular Dry Goods building. The church was built with Mount Franklin Blue Limestone on a reinforced concrete foundation, with an operational Bell Tower. Cost of construction was $120,000.

Completion of the first section took place in September, 1921 and the Central Baptist Church began to hold their services in the new chapel. Although work was delayed on the start of the second section of the building, Church growth continued to increase rapidly.

Another Church, the First Baptist Church, was also experiencing a rapid expansion of worshipers. Their location at Virginia and Magoffin was quickly becoming overcrowded and they found themselves leasing neighboring buildings to hold services and classes. At a Central Baptist Church prayer meeting, a parishoner named C.M. Newman suggested that Central and First merge and become one body -- and committees were formed, logistics were discussed, prayers were said and both Church congregations voted in December 1922 - and the First Baptist Church was reborn.

In April 1924, the second section of the original building plan was finally started. Again, Lehmann and Wuehrmann were retained to design the structure, which cost a cool quarter of a million dollars to erect. The completed building was (is) a beautiful Church with rough-hewn stone walls and built in a gorgeous Church Gothic style. Lehmann & Wuehrmann were already known locally for their Church Gothic designs -- look at our write-up of the Altura Presbyterian in the column to the right. Although the architect of record for the Altura was Glick, the original drawings were from the pen of William Wuehrmann.

By the late 1940s, the First Baptist Church was again overflowing with people, and it was decided to build again. A huge auditorium was added, again with rough stone on a concrete foundation, at a cost of $563,630.40. The new auditorium seated 1,500 people, and the cornerstone was laid on May 23, 1951. The exterior, designed by architect James E. Monroe Jr., was also a Church Gothic, with a slightly different flavor than the Lehmann-Wuehrmann 1920's build immediately to its west.

The First Baptist Church laid the cornerstone on their building on Magoffin on the Fourth of July, 1906. In a touch of class, eight individuals -- Norwood Oxford, R.A. Whitlock, E.D. Earle, Mrs. P.M. Rigdon, Fred McKamy, Miss Julia de la Rosa, H.L. Red and Mrs. G.M. Seamonds -- that had attended the 1906 event were invited to attend the laying of the 1951 cornerstone. Classy.

Since the 1951 build, the Church has expanded even further, and famously occupies the entire city block today. The original Central Baptist Church, although joined to the newer buildings, still stands at the southwest corner of the property - a beautiful Gothic that does, indeed, emulate St. Clements.

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Text, research and modern photography provided to Sketchclub.net by Mark Stone, citing period newspaper articles accessed at newspapers.com