Historical October 1984 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
For about four weeks in the spring of 1879, traffic along Morgan Street at the 3100 block was something of a problem.
It seems the Garrison Street Baptist Church was moving two blocks west to the corner of Compton and Morgan (now Compton and Delmar).
To do so it had to have a city permit and the permission of each landowner along the route.
Because the owner of the land upon which the church had been built, Central Methodist Church, had leased the land to another tenant, the Baptists had to move and take their church with them. That church, then called the Garrison Avenue Baptist Church, is now Delmar Baptist Church.
It stayed on the corner of Compton and Delmar until 1884 when a new church was built—not moved—on the corner of Delmar and Spring.
At that point the current name was adopted.
The congregation eventually built on the corner of Pendleton and Delmar, and moved to its present location at Skinker and Delmar in 1918.
The first pastor of Delmar Baptist when it was still at the Garrison Avenue location was something of an extraordinary leader. Originally schooled as a lawyer, Dr. William Pope Yeaman had received his education in Kentucky in the law firm of his uncle, Governor John Helm.
He passed the bar exam at the age of nineteen, and at the age of twenty-eight he joined the Baptist ministry.
For a period of twenty years from 1877 to 1896, he was elected the moderator of the Missouri Baptist General Convention.
During that same time, for three years from 1887 to 1889, he was president of the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri.
He was the non-resident chancellor of William Jewell College.
In short, he was a dominant and catalytic personality in the entire Missouri area. Only Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, pastor of the church from 1950 to 1962, held similar offices when he was president of the National Council of Churches for four years.
Getting back to the story of the moving church, it snowed in the middle of the move.
The city was brought to a stop on a Saturday night in April.
The next morning, Sun., April 6, the members of the eventually named Delmar Baptist Church trudged through the snow out into the middle of Morgan Street and held services in their church as it was up on five foot rollers heading west.
With no such modern conveniences as power and telephone lines to get in the way, the church eventually made it to the end of its two block hegira and settled at the corner of Compton and Morgan Streets. That it remained there barely five years is probably not surprising.
The congregation has stayed at its current Skinker and Delmar location since construction began and the cornerstone laid on November 11, 1918— Armistice Day.
Although most of its current members do not live nearby, it certainly is an integral factor in the quality of the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood.
Original photograph caption
Delmar Baptist Church, accompanying Ray Breun’s history. The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, October 1984, page 4. Photographer not credited.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, October 1984.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1984_10.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
