"Boston Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church.
Has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
This Church possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America."
Designated by the National Parks Service.
Boston Avenue Methodist Church
Tulsa was just a small trading post town in Indian Territory when the Rev. E. B. Chenoweth arrived with his wife and infant son in November, 1893, to organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Though the Civil War had officially reunited the Union and Confederate states some years before, the church was, at that time, still divided over the issue of slavery.
As soon as his family was settled, Chenoweth rounded up seven congregation members and began monthly meetings in the nearby Presbyterian mission. The following summer, they built a brush arbor with pews made of wooden planks stretched over railroad ties. Later that year a small frame building was completed, and the little congregation had its first real home!
In 1901 the congregation moved into a nicer brick building, but soon outgrew that as well. New property for a church site was purchased on the corner of Fifth and Boston in late 1906, and a large new building was erected with tall white columns. This would be the church's home for the next twenty years. The congregation was renamed Boston Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
The Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, located in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma was completed in 1929. It is considered to be one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical art deco architecture in the United States and has been designated by the Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark as well as listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
By the mid-1920's the congregation had again outgrown its building. Building committee members traveled from coast to coast in search of the right design. Architects were hired, then dismissed when their suggestions were less than inspiring. Finally, in desperation, the wife of Building Committee Chair C. C. Cole asked Miss Adah Robinson, a University of Tulsa art instructor, for her help. The sketch Robinson produced a few days later was a real shock to committee members, but her idea gradually caught on. The design was done in a new art deco style rather than the then-popular Gothic architecture, and included a round sanctuary and a slender 15-story tower. With the 1920s oil boom at its peak, church members were optimistic enough about the future to embrace both the new look and the $1,500,000 commitment.
Robinson's design was approved, and Rush, Endacott, & Rush architectural firm was hired. A young man named Bruce Goff , one of Robinson's students and an employee of the firm, did the drafting and another former student, Robert Garrison, created the sculptures. Robinson supervised the project, working closely with church members and construction workers through the building's completion. Construction took over two years, and finally on June 9, 1929, church members moved into the twentieth-century art deco masterpiece that still houses the Boston Avenue congregation today.
From Boston Avenue Methodist