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The small parking lot in front of the church barely holds a couple of dozen cars at Mount Gilead Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, Sunday, May 25, 2025.<\/p>\n
Bob Booth<\/p>\n
Special to the Star-Telegram<\/p>\n
The oldest African American Baptist church in the city is close to being purchased and repurposed into a performance art center.<\/p>\n
Alvin Brown, owner of Airport Field Services, is in the works to close on the Mount Gilead Baptist Church property at 600 Grove St. in downtown Fort Worth. Brown intends to renovate the building to support live music, theater, spoken word and visual arts programming, according to a press release. It will bring revenue to downtown, complement the Jubilee Theatre and Sundance Square, and be more than a museum of the past, but a space able to serve the community’s cultural needs, Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt serves as a historical witness of more than 150 years of American life in Fort Worth,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Last year, the congregation celebrated the church\u2019s 150th anniversary<\/a>, but financial struggles, a lack of air conditioning, and dwindling membership led it to seek a new location and put the property up for sale.<\/p>\n The building was listed at $3 million<\/a> and the church planned to use proceeds from the sale to find a new location for the church, which would preserve its congregation, name, identity and history, said Pastor Lorenzo Jones last year.<\/p>\n The congregation has been holding services at the William M. Macdonald YMCA in southeast Fort Worth since February.<\/p>\n Brown lives downtown, and when he comes off U.S. 287 the church towers over the entrance to the city. When he learned about its history, legacy and its resilience he said he had to close on it.<\/p>\n Mount Gilead Baptist Church was founded by 12 formerly enslaved people in September 1875. The first building was in a Black settlement called \u201cBaptist Hill\u201d near 15th and Crump streets. The church then moved to another building on 13th Avenue and Jones Street in 1882-83. It included a library, cafeteria, pipe organ, an indoor baptismal, a day nursery, an indoor pool, a kindergarten and opera chairs in the balcony.<\/p>\n The current 4,800-square-foot building at East Fifth Street and Grove Street was completed in 1912.<\/p>\n In June 2025, the church was listed on the Most Endangered Places by Historic Fort Worth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating and preserving the city\u2019s architectural heritage. The list is used to draw attention to historic places in need of restoration or preservation. The buildings recognized have generally been threatened by a lack of maintenance, loss of parking and a lack of awareness by the owners of economic incentives available to rehabilitate historic buildings.<\/p>\n The church was designed by Wallace Rayfield, believed to be the second practicing African-American architect in the country. He also designed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was an organizing hub during the Civil Rights Movement for icons like Martin Luther King Jr. and where four girls died from a bombing in 1963.<\/p>\n DeQual\u00e9s Thompson, principal and co-founder of Thompson Sada Architecture + Design, a Dallas-based architecture firm, will serve as the architect for the performance art center project. He and Brown want to preserve the historic character, nature, and the aesthetic of the building as it becomes a functional space.<\/p>\n For Thompson, African-American architects and historic preservation have had a fraught relationship for decades. African-American architecture is usually in environments antagonistic to their existence or contributions. For buildings like Mount Gilead to be built and continue to prosper for over 100 years is a miraculous feat, Thompson said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we talk about things that are endangered, it was endangered at its inception, and it\u2019s more endangered today,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cSo I say that\u2019s why it\u2019s more important than any regular old building.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 5:00 AM.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n An initial mock-up of the event space for Mt. Gilead Baptist Church that will be transformed into a performance art center to celebrate the building\u2019s historical identity and legacy. Thompson Sada Architecture + Design <\/p>\n
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The original view of the performance hall for Mt. Gilead Baptist Church that will be transformed into a performance art center to celebrate the building\u2019s historical identity and legacy. Thompson Sada Architecture + Design <\/p>\n
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