Mahomet is Home to Champaign County's Oldest Operating Church
Established in 1839, First Baptist Church in Mahomet is the oldest operating church in Champaign County, with worship services still held today. Nearly two centuries of church history also tell a story of Mahomet’s growth and interconnectedness as a community.
1839 Just seven years after Mahomet (then Middletown) was settled, an initial gathering of nine men and women established the Baptist church. This group met in the home of the village founder, Daniel T. Porter. Later that year, formal membership had grown to 71 people.
1840* The Baptists’ first church building was erected in Mahomet, at the northeast corner of Main and Lombard Streets (at the location that is now the Sangamon on Main building). This building was eventually used to muster troops for the Civil War, a significant moment considering that the Baptists had staunchly agreed not to use the church for any political purpose.
1867 The existing church building was constructed at the southwest corner of Elm and Union Streets, on land donated by Theodore M. Brown. The clay for the red brick building was sourced from the town’s brickyard, located just a few blocks away, near what is now New Beginnings Lutheran Church, at Lincoln and Dunbar Streets.
1901 The turn of the century saw a significant addition to the church, reorienting the building with a northwest entrance and a new brick bell tower. This change in orientation, which also saw the pulpit reversed 180 degrees inside the sanctuary, was made after the town center moved.
A fire toward the end of the nineteenth century destroyed many of the original businesses in the village, along the Sangamon River, moving the “downtown” to the primary blocks of Main Street we think of today.
1901-1911 Sometime within these years, an indoor baptistry was added to the sanctuary. Prior to this, baptisms took place in the Sangamon River or small gravel ponds.
1914-1925 The basement was dug out with horses and scrapers; the ceiling tiles in the basement today are still original.
1916-1918 Preserving another piece of Mahomet history, the bell from Salem Presbyterian Church was purchased; it is still used today. (The Presbyterian Church was another of Mahomet’s first churches, built in 1858, but it closed in 1916 following political conflict within its congregation.)
Some say the First Baptist Church’s original bell cracked after being rung too vigorously on Armistice Day, marking the end of WWI, which was in 1918.
1924 When Memorial Stadium was built at the University of Illinois in 1924, the church’s location along Rt. 150 – which, at the time, was the main highway to Champaign-Urbana from the west – made it an accessible stopping point for travelers.
Church members would cook chicken dinners in what would become a longstanding tradition that lasted until interstate 74 construction concluded in the early 70s. The dinners sold to travelers raised money for White Cross, a mission organization supported by First Baptist Church.
1976 The basement was expanded to the church’s full footprint, and an education wing was added upstairs. Lifetime member Bruce Swartz recalled how this addition utilized bricks from a tavern in Tuscola that had burned.
“We had brick-cleaning parties,” he described, with groups of congregants who scrubbed mortar from each brick. “Scraped hands and knuckles” turned “repurposed pub bricks!” into church walls that still stand today.
1986 A fiberglass baptistry was added.
And of course, over the years, many other updates have been made. Swartz, for his part, recalled “still going to the outhouses” before modern bathrooms were added to the church. Pastor Brian Romanowski admitted that “it can be challenging” to maintain such an old building, but that they have done a lot of work painting and upgrading in recent years.
In a sesquicentennial history booklet, Lew Blackmon noted that First Baptist Church was “a church founded in the wilderness which has never been afraid of innovation and change.”
In this way, First Baptist Church, an important part of Mahomet and Champaign County history, is able to preserve a long past while still moving toward a bright future.
*This date is unclear across sources, with some saying the first church was built in 1850, and some suggesting there were three buildings, built in 1840, 1850, and 1867. The date listed here is based on the News-Gazette article cited below.
Sources
Blackman, Lew. "150 Years of Service: First Baptist Church of Mahomet: 1830-1989." Published by The Church, 1989.
Pasley, Gregory James. "The Baptists." Diggin' up Bones, Vol. 1. 2014.
Purnell, Isabelle. An Unofficial History of Mahomet, IL. Mayhaven Publishing, 2000.
Wegeng, Edith. "Grew From Indian Trail." The News-Gazette, 28 December 1941, p. 16.
