As I was reading An American Hometown, I stumbled across Reverend Orval W. Baylor. Mr. Baylor was an assistant pastor at the First United Brethren Church. If a person solely looked at this characteristic of Orval Baylor, one would probably consider him a good, moral person. However, quite the opposite was true. Orval was the manager of the Klan Home located in Klan Park at 1501 North 13th Street. In 1927, Terre Haute had two Klan chapters, with a combined membership of 8,240.
I found it ironic that Terre Haute had so many members of the Ku Klux Klan, when it used to be part of the Underground Railroad. One of the stops was Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal. Escaping slaves stopped at Allen Chapel on their way to Canada on lumbar boats. There was a tunnel under the old church building which led to the Wabash River.
Along with being a part of the Underground Railroad, Allen Chapel is the oldest serving African American church in western Indiana. The church as served as a speaking forum for people like Frederick Douglas, Eugene V. Debs, and Jackie Robinson. The building housed Terre Haute's first courthouse bell. And the church is recognized by National Register for Historic Places as an important piece of our nation's history.
The church is still open to the public today, but it only has twenty to forty members. However, the building has been deteriorating. In 1997, Joy Sacopulos (also mentioned in a previous blog) realized the bad condition of the church and began steps to renovate the building. She organized a volunteer group, and asked Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana for advice. In return, they gave her a seven step process to fix Allen Chapel. Money for the renovation was donated from local businesses. Today, the building still stands with all its historic memories at the corner of 3rd and Crawford streets.
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