The Montana Historical Society has been awarded a nearly half-million dollar grant to stabilize and provide safe access to the historic Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Great Falls.

The $497,712 grant through the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Park Service and its Historic Preservation Fund’s African American Civil Rights grant program.

Coupled with the church’s $200,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Saving Black Churches program, the funds will provide repairs to the failing exterior brick; installation of a new lift to provide access; create ADA-compliant bathrooms; and update the electrical system, according to MTHS.

The society will provide technical guidance.

Local projects receive historic preservation grants [2023]

The NPS grant program focuses on preserving sites and stories directly associated with African Americans’ struggles to gain equal rights.

The Union Bethel AME church stands at 916 5th Ave. S. and is “one of the most significant properties associated with Montana’s African American Civil Rights history. Organized in 1890, congregants dedicated Union Bethel’s current church in 1917. By the 1910s, discriminatory ‘Jim Crow’ laws infiltrated Montana’s codes and local ordinances, placing restrictions on Black residents’ ability to marry, work, and patronize businesses. Unofficial but pervasive policies placed many constraints on African Americans. In response, Union Bethel AME became the center of Great Falls African American citizens’ civil rights work for social uplift, education, and equality at the local, state, and national levels,” according to a MTHS release.

The church that remains today was the second church on the location and completed in 1917.

According to the NPS’ document entering the church onto the National Register of Historic Places, the church is a “tall, one-story, rectangular, wooden structure with brick veneer that is sheltered by a steep gable roof. The overall presentation of the church is one of studied formalism, tidiness, and substance. Drawing predominately from Gothic Revival influences, the church also exhibits eclectic influences, borrowing from Tudor styles in the parapeted gable roof, crowsteps and the unbroken wall surface on the southern elevation. Features possibly drawn from Italian Renaissance styles include the square, centered tower and the wide overhangs supported by paired, wooden brackets. Exterior wall surfacing on the church is running bond and decorative brickwork is understated. It includes a soldier course above the foundation and double rowlock perimeters at the window heads.”

City supports historic designation for Baatz building

The church underwent minimal repairs or alterations during the “period of significance from 1917-1950,” but after 1950, vandalism destroyed the original stained glass windows, which were replaced with textured glass, according to the NPS document.

“Despite this diminished integrity of materials and design, the building still retains sufficient integrity to convey its significance. The steeple roof also has been reshingled. Original lights and pews perpetuate the interior historic feeling. Overall, the building retains a high degree of historic integrity in terms of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. During the period of significance the parsonage was reduced from the size it attained during the expansion of 1924, and was completely razed from the property in 1982,’ according to the NPS document.

Pastor Betsy Williams describes the Gothic Revival-style church as a jewel in the neighborhood and in a MTHS release, said, “I see life that comes from here. It’s a shining brightness…in the middle of this neighborhood; [it] is somewhere where you can gather, where there can be resources, where there can be help, where there can be spiritual uplifting.”

Photos courtesy of the Montana Historical Society

Jenn Rowell

See Full Bio