2 weeks Ago
NORTH CHARLESTON — What was once a lively Baptist church, with a near century-old congregation that grew to include more than a thousand parishioners, now sits empty and decrepit on Rivers Avenue. The historic façade of First Baptist Church, anchored by white columns juxtaposed with aging red brick, is being razed flat. The 40,000-plus square-foot site of the house of worship, sold late last year, overlooked a major North Charleston thoroughfare.
Circa 1960, in the church’s heyday, Rivers Avenue was a measly two-lane highway known by townsfolk as the "Dual Lane." The demolished church plot will grow with the current, rapid development of the area, soon housing new congregants in the form of apartment tenants, developers said. Decades have passed since former North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey spoke from the pulpit as a deacon.
Or since congressman Jim Clyburn stood alongside other dignitaries in the '70s. Former parishioners lovingly referred to the sanctuary as "God’s house by the side of the road." The site was home to the very first semester of what would eventually become Charleston Southern University.
An article published in The News and Courier captures the installation of the prefabricated steeple on to First Baptist Church of North Charleston on January 23, 1960. A long white steeple once pierced the skyline, visible for miles down Rivers Avenue. Folks marveled at its three-piece installation via crane, erected in the first month of 1960.
Now, 65 years later, it will be removed in mirror reverse. Perhaps the most lasting impact the house of worship leaves are those lifelong memories of the many who gathered among friends and family within its halls. Some removed the long, wooden pews and various adornments from the site as keepsakes.
"A church is really a people first, but those people need to have a place," said Craig Tuck, executive director of the Charleston Baptist Association. He and his team did everything they could to help keep the doors from closing for good, to no avail, he said. The Charleston Baptist Association encompasses around 73 churches in the tri-county area.
They work to ensure all Baptist organizations are strong and healthy in terms of membership and mission. Through a couple of different means, CBA can revitalize churches slowly diminishing in attendance or replant congregations to prevent a church from outright closing. But First Baptist would have "needed a hard restart," said Tuck.
In the end, that didn't come to pass. "(First Baptist) had a place in history in Charleston and it also had, from our standpoint, a place in Gospel history — of reaching people with good news," Tuck said. "So it's always a sad day when you see something that is sacred, that's meant to serve others and bless the community — to see that building come down," he said.
An article published in The News and Courier celebrates three Baptist College boys' win against The Citadel on December 8, 1967. First Baptist began as North Charleston Baptist Church in April 1920, according to a book written about the many iterations of its congregation. John E.
Huss was commissioned by the church to write its history in 1995. The congregation was one of the first to establish in the newly developing area of the northern Charleston peninsula. Fifty-plus years later, in the height of the church's attendance, the area would officially become a city.
Reverend B.J. Woodward, a Barnwell native, took up the mantle as both the founding member of the church and its first pastor.
Nine years later, Paul Pridgen became the pastor and the title stayed in his family over six decades. He served as pastor from 1929-1962 and his son, Paul Pridgen Jr., took over until 1991.
A graph illustrates parishioner membership at First Baptist Church of North Charleston, as documented in "God's House by the Side of the Road," a book written by John E. Huss on the congregation's history. It was in the senior Pridgen's final years as pastor that the seed was planted to host college classes at First Baptist.
His son led from the pulpit as students learned biology, math, history, religion, botany and other studies in the adjacent building in 1965. Years later, the school moved several miles up the road and, in 1990, it was renamed the Charleston Southern University. Summey, a former North Charleston mayor, was one of the few in that inaugural class to walk the halls of First Baptist’s school building.
When he graduated, he married his grade-school sweetheart Deborah and they started their family. He became a chairman of the deacons for First Baptist before taking the mayoral mantle in 1994. "In its prime, it was not only a place of worship, but a gathering place for families and friends to come together in a good environment — to enjoy each other, love each other and learn more about life together," Summey told The Post and Courier.
In those "prime" days, the church welcomed many influential figures and imparted its influence upon them. Dr. James Rivers remembers his time as a student of Baptist College fondly.
He served as the senior president of the inaugural class, majored in biology and competed in a memorable pizza-eating contest along the way. Students line up to start classes at Baptist College of Charleston, later to become Charleston Southern University, in 1965 at First Baptist Church, North Charleston. Pizza was the new fad in the late '60s, Rivers said.
The competition between Baptist College versus The Citadel was widely televised and covered by this newspaper, then known as The News and Courier. Each side had three contestants. It was Baptist College’s first match-up with the local rival.
Rivers and two friends won by eating the most pizza pies in a single hour — 26 to The Citadel's 21, to be exact. "I’m sure my mother was very proud of me, having sent her son to college to get an education and looking at the six o’clock news and seeing him eating pizza," Rivers said with a laugh. Rivers fondly remembered the early days of his schooling at Baptist College, of goofing off with the close-knit inaugural class.
He also attributes much of his success as a dentist and as a professor and department chair at the Medical University of South Carolina to the skills learned and connections made there. Coming from rural Hampton, with its small-town atmosphere and mindset, the adjustment to Charleston was welcome and enlightening, Rivers said. He quickly learned how to navigate the world and communicate with others.
"I give (the faculty) credit for my success, whatever we consider that to mean," Rivers said. "Equal to the academic part, my experience in Baptist College has helped me greatly in getting through life’s events." Dr.
David Cuttino leads band students in the sanctuary hall of First Baptist Church, North Charleston, in 1965. For some, the church was their life. Gloria Thiem likes to tell folks she was born there.
Not more than a month after her birth, her name was printed onto First Baptist’s cradle roll, a list of the youngest members of the congregation. Just about every time the sanctuary’s doors opened, Thiem and her family were there, she remembered fondly. Her parents were married in the sanctuary and her father served as a deacon who worked closely with both Pridgens.
One of Thiem's oldest memories, especially of being at the church, was when she was around 5 years old. The senior Pridgen had a radio show where he'd spread the Gospel word. It was called "Let's Talk About Jesus" and featured a live performance of the theme song by the same name.
Protective fencing shows the back half of an open sanctuary during ongoing demolition of First Baptist Church, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in North Charleston, at the facility that was the first location of Charleston Southern University. Microphones weren't what they are today, Thiem said. The ones the pastor used for his show were contraptions that were not mobile by any means, situated on tall stands.
The junior Pridgen would hoist her up and hold her to the microphone so that she could sing along, providing the whimsy of a child's voice to that of the duo or trio leading the piece that day. Thiem now lives miles away from the church she grew up in, but she recently made a pilgrimage there to see the old sanctuary before it was completely razed by developers. "I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’d been down that way," she said.
To see the condition it was in — overtaken by trash, vines and years and years of grime — "broke her heart," she said. Long gone are the days when the site hosted congregations arm-in-arm, where members grew up as family within those walls. Long gone too are the days when the Pridgens would host radio shows with new-fangled equipment, broadcasting good news and spreading the gospel.
Decades have passed since a group of young coeds embarked on their journey in university education, having made the space rich with history and the liveliness only a group of college kids could impart. Now, many of the photographs and physical relics from the building will sit permanently on display at Charleston Southern University, including a brick or two from the sanctuary, dutifully washed of asbestos by demolition crews..
