Central Christian Church

The 1899 Central Christian Church is a significant and intact example of the unique ecclesiastical architecture of James E. Flanders. A prolific and accomplished architect, Flanders is especially admired for a series of early 20th-century churches that united traditional Gothic Revival features with increasingly prominent references to the Prairie style. The earliest known surviving example of a Flanders-designed church, the Central Christian Church illustrates the beginning stages of this development, during which subtle elements of the Sullivanesque and Prairie styles were integrated into primarily Late Victorian designs. With minimal alterations, the building clearly reflects Flanders' architectural mastery and his unique gift for blending a broad range of influences in harmonious and beautifully executed original designs. In addition to representing the work of a master architect and possessing high artistic value, the Central Christian Church is also Greenville's most characteristic example of a late 19th-century church. It is nominated under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance. Criteria Consideration A for religious properties is met because the church is significant as an outstanding example of Late Gothic Revival architecture.

19th-Century Development of Hunt County and Greenville

Hunt County, Texas lies in the northeastern part of the state, in the Blackland Prairie northeast of Dallas. Anglo settlement began slowly around 1839, at which time they found only small groups of Kiowa Indians inhabiting the area. The Kiowa left soon after and posed no threat to the settlers, but development was slow nonetheless. When the county was formed in 1846, it had an estimated population of only 350. It was named for General Memucan Hunt, an instrumental figure in the U.S. annexation of Texas, and the town of Greenville, named for Mier expedition member Thomas Jefferson Green, was established as the county seat.

Hunt County grew more rapidly after its official establishment, with most settlers coming from Southern states. Despite the area's ideal conditions for growing cotton, a lack of transportation prevented the development of a plantation economy, and most residents operated self-sufficient small farms. In 1860, the county's Anglo population had grown to 6,053, but only 142 owned slaves, which totaled 577. Despite their relatively small numbers, the elite group of slaveholders dominated the county both economically and politically.

Because most of the county's residents lived on farms, Greenville grew more slowly than the county as a whole. A log courthouse and a post office were constructed in 1847. School was held in the courthouse until a private one-room school was built in 1850. Commercial development began around the courthouse square in the 1850s and included a general merchandise store, three taverns, three grocery stores, a law office, two hotels, a drug store, and a few other businesses. The Masons and Odd Fellows also built halls in Greenville before the Civil War.
The most significant catalyst to the 19th-century development of Hunt County and Greenville was the 1880 arrival of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Extensions Railway. It was followed by the East Line and Red River Railroad in 1881, the Dallas and Greenville Railway in 1886, the St. Louis Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") Railway in 1887, and the Texas Midland Line in 1896.

Greenville quickly became a regional center of rail transportation, encouraging rapid growth of Hunt County's cotton industry and equally the development of associated commercial and financial services in Greenville. By 1884, Greenville had become a leading cotton marketing location, and its population had grown to 3,000. The community supported fifteen businesses, including two banks, cotton gins, flour mills, and even an opera house capable of seating 800.7
Greenville's rapid growth continued over the next few decades. Waterworks began operation in 1889, and in 1891 the city began operation of the first municipally owned electrical utility in Texas. By 1892, Greenville was shipping over $1 million worth of cotton each year and supported 200 businesses. The city's population grew to 8,500 by 1900 and would reach 14,000 in 1914 when Greenville was home to the largest cottonseed oil mill in the South. It was during this climate of rapid growth and economic prosperity that the Central Christian Church was constructed.

The Central Christian Church

The congregation that would later become the Central Christian Church began meeting in 1848, just two years after Hunt County was established, in the home of Leonard Robey, a pioneer settler whose farm lay south of Greenville. Meetings continued to be held in private homes until after the Civil War. The first church building was a square log structure built on land donated by the Robeys, one of the few churches in town at the time. In 1876, Elder James Pickens held a revival meeting in a building on Lee Street, one block west of the town square, which had a significant impact on the community and encouraged the continued growth of the congregation. Under the ministry of Dr. D. W. Pritchett, the growth continued and the need for a larger building was increasingly apparent. Services were held in other buildings around town until 1888 when the decision was made to erect the current building."

Unfortunately, the donation deed for the land to be used was never filed and was lost. To perfect title to the lot, Mr. Robey executed a quitclaim deed to the Trustees of the First Christian Church on September 23, 1898. Soon after, they hired Dallas architect James E. Flanders, who had already established his reputation as a prominent church designer. The name of the church was changed in 1898 to the Central Christian Church, and a charter was applied for and obtained from the State of Texas. Construction of the Central Christian Church began by the end of 1898, and the building was completed and dedicated in the summer of 1899,10

The 1948 Addition

In 1948, a three-story attached addition was built on the south side of the church. The Architect, R.W. Ragsdale, moderated the impact on the original by minimizing the connection between the two buildings and designing a sensitive and compatible addition. The congregation spent $200,000 to construct the building, which has now been named Briscoe Hall in honor of a family that left a large endowment for maintenance of the buildings. The addition is used for educational and administrative functions."

Architect James E. Flanders

James Edward Flanders (1849-1928) was a significant and prolific architect in Texas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in 1849 in Chicago, he attended public schools (where, interestingly, he was a classmate of Daniel Burnham) before beginning his architectural training as a draftsman and apprentice with the firm of Schmid and Zucker around 1871. He moved to Minneapolis in 1874, where he continued his professional development.

As Flanders himself recounted in a 1925 interview, the Minnesota climate did not agree with him. "When the mercury dropped to 15 degrees below zero on Thanksgiving Day, 1875, I thought it time to move."13 At the time, Dallas was rumored to be booming, and according to Flanders, his correspondence with the postmaster, Judge A. B. Norton, "pictured the rising town of Dallas in such glowing colors as to cause me to come South as soon as I could arrange my affairs."

Flanders arrived in Dallas in August of 1876, and although the town was indeed thriving, there were few prospects for architectural practice. "The outlook for a man of my profession was gloomy in the extreme. The town undoubtedly was doing a rushing business, and men in all lines were prospering, but the buildings were of the cheapest and most temporary kind. Nobody expected to remain here permanently." Dallas was essentially considered a frontier boomtown, destined to flare out in a matter of time, and most residents wanted only to make what money they could while it lasted. Substantial, architect-designed buildings seemed contrary to those plans.

Flanders was able to find work, however. More and more counties were being organized across the state, especially in West Texas, and he was able to secure commissions for a number of courthouses. These included the 1874 Rockwall County Courthouse, the 1882 Nolan County Courthouse (for whom he designed another courthouse in 1888), the Shackleford, Stephens, and Eastland County Courthouses, all built in 1883, and the 1884 Baylor County Courthouse. (Of these, only the Shackleford County Courthouse (NR 1976) remains.) He also designed Dallas' fifth courthouse, constructed in 1885.

Although he continued to design county courthouses, the 1880s and 1890s brought Flanders increasing commercial and residential work in the Dallas area. By then, Dallas residents were apparently convinced that the city would survive in the long term, and they began to invest in more substantial buildings. Flanders, who has been referred to as "Dallas' First Architect," had little competition at the time, and he designed a number of Dallas' most prominent buildings of the era. He designed the 1885 annex to the Grand Windsor, Dallas' most opulent hotel, the c.1885 Cockrell Building, the 1885 Gould Building, which housed the Texas and Pacific Railroad offices, and the 1884 Gaston Building (also called the 16 Merchants Exchange Building), which Flanders described as "the finest building at the time in town." In 1887, he was also commissioned to design the first State Fair Exposition Building at Fair Park, "the biggest thing of the times in an architectural way."

While designing these commercial buildings, Flanders was also designing Dallas' most prominent homes, often for the same clients who commissioned his commercial work. He designed houses for Dr. L. W. Locke, Jules E. Schneider, W. H. Flippen, A. H. Belo, John Bookhout, Charles Ott, C. A. Keating, and George Atkins. In 1884, Flanders also tried his hand at real estate development, platting the first residential neighborhood west of the Trinity River. He named the development Flanders Heights and constructed his own home there, but the area, near the present intersection of Sylvan and the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, was not in Dallas' line of growth. Flanders Heights was a commercial failure, and the discouraged Flanders left Dallas for California in 1887.

He returned to Dallas in 1891, however, and reestablished his architectural practice. He doesn't seem to have lost much ground, and he immediately began receiving more commissions. He continued to design houses, but also a number of Dallas area schools, including the 1891 San Jacinto School at San Jacinto and Pecos, the 1893 Alamo Public School at Jeffries and Hickory, the 1893 Columbian School at Akard and Royal, and the Oak Cliff Public High School at E. 10th and Patton (all since demolished).

Flanders also began to focus on another area of his practice, for which he would eventually receive the most acclaim, ecclesiastical design. He claimed to have designed 125 churches in Texas, likely dating back to the 1880s, but, unfortunately, only a handful of examples from the latter part of his career survive today. Those few surviving examples, however, demonstrate his substantive understanding of contemporary trends, progressive architectural tendencies, and unique knack for inventively blending a variety of stylistic elements. Those qualities are manifested in a series of churches, most of which were built in the first decade of the 20th century, that unite Gothic traditions with strong, clear influences of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School.

Architectural Historian Jay C. Henry explains Flanders' blend of Gothic and Modern influences as a compromise between the architect's own progressive tendencies and the more traditional tastes of most church congregations. Henry has also identified an evolutionary process in Flanders' church designs, with gradually stronger allusions to the Chicago School. The 1904 First Methodist Church in Royse City, for instance, was predominately a Carpenter Gothic design, but its wide, flared eaves and simplified detailing indicate a distinct Prairie influence. In subsequent designs, like the 1904 Trinity Methodist Church in Dallas, the 1904-5 First United Methodist Church in Pittsburg and the 1910 St. John's Methodist in Stamford, those references became much more explicit, most notably by incorporating bands of organic, Sullivanesque ornament.

In specific reference to the First United Methodist Church in Pittsburg, Eileen Wilson Coffman describes an equally significant aspect of the Prairie influence on Flanders' churches, an increasingly horizontal emphasis. With low-entry porches that seem more akin to domestic architecture and strong roof lines and string courses, Flanders created a distinct horizontality, complemented by the blocky, rectangular towers that rise from the primary mass. Coffman questions whether Flanders was actually following Wright's development of the Prairie style or simply developing his own style based on many of the same precedents. She notes that elements of Gothic Revival, Shingle, Queen Anne and even Richardsonian can be identified in his church designs, and that Sullivan and the Chicago School were only one of many influences. He was, like his contemporary Wright, a master of eclecticism with a gift for integrating wide-ranging influences to create unique, but harmonious, designs.

As a Chicago native, Flanders could have been more aware of that city's architectural trends than most architects in the South, and most progressive architects of the day were familiar with Wright's Prairie style by the early 1900s. It seems reasonable and even likely, then, that Flanders was influenced by Wright's work. This certainly does not detract from Flanders' designs, however, as he was able to absorb the substance of his many influences, translate them into his unique style, and apply them to a full range of building types. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his churches, which were so idiosyncratic that they are easily identified as his even today.

Flanders returned to California in 1913, where he remained for the rest of his life, and his legacy in Texas ended with his early Modern ecclesiastical masterpieces. We can be sure that Flanders continued to develop as an architect in Hollywood, where he developed a second, more successful "Flanders Heights" neighborhood. He died there in 1928.

Architectural Significance of the Central Christian Church

Greenville's Central Christian Church is a highly significant and remarkably intact example of Flanders' ecclesiastical designs. Constructed in 1899, it is the oldest known surviving example of a Flanders-designed church, and it provides important insight into his architectural development. The building is predominately Late Gothic Revival in style, with its vertical emphasis, intricate detailing, and generous amounts of pointed-arch, stained glass windows. The unique patterned brickwork and fish scale shingles also identify the church with more general Late Victorian influences. Yet, Flanders' allusions to Sullivan, through ornamental bands of organic patterns, and Wright, through simple geometric ornament, are already apparent, notably the early incorporation of those elements in Texas.

Those varied and disparate influences were united seamlessly in the Central Christian Church to create an intriguing and wholly original design. Flanders' attention to detail and workmanship is also evident, with each element carefully designed and crafted to complement the whole. His variation on an Akron plan indicates that he was also aware of contemporary architectural trends that related specifically to Protestant churches. In short, the Central Christian Church represents the work of a master architect, possesses high artistic values and embodies distinctive characteristics of its type and period. Although the Central Christian Church is a religious property it derives its primary significance from its architectural distinction and therefore meets criteria consideration A. For all of these reasons, it is nominated to the National Register under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance.