401 East Sprague Street, Southside Baptist Church, 1925 & 1952

Like Central Terrace UMC and Trinity Moravian Church, Southside Baptist Church also traces its original meetings to the Centerville School auditorium (1892). It began as a mission church of the New Friendship Baptist Church in Davidson County, formally becoming Southside Baptist Church in 1897. The congregation’s first building was constructed on Monmouth Street (west of their current site) in 1896-1899 as a frame Gothic Revival style weatherboarded structure. The current building is one of the area’s architectural landmarks. Begun in 1919 and completed in 1925, it was designed by C. Gilbert Humphrey, an NYC architect who relocated to Winston-Salem in 1914. (He had immigrated to NYC from England, https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000563.) The congregation reached a membership high of 1122 in 1968, but then experienced a steady decline until recently when the building was sold to another congregation. Southside also sponsored various mission offshoots in Konnoak Hills (1952), Easton (1962) and Unity (1962).

A two-story symmetrical brick Gothic Revival church with front gable that features twin, three-story towers with capped buttresses that culminate in belfries with abbreviated crenellation and paired louvered vents; a rose-pattern stained glass window; and pointed arch windows, transoms and doors. Beige brick accents the water table, cornice, window sills, and lintels (some now painted white), while concrete steps lead to three double-leaf doors with oversized wrought-iron strap hinges. A two-story-plus-basement addition was added to the east side in 1952. 1925 CD: not listed; 1935 CD: Southside Baptist Church (Reverend Nolan C. Teague, pastor); 1945 CD: Reverend Wendell R. Grigg, pastor. (The 1951 Sanborn Map shows a one-story building with a porch, residential in character, located beside 415 Sprague labeled “Sunday School Annex.”)