A Brief History of the Crossville church of Christ

The history of the church of Christ that meets on Main Street in Crossville dates back to 1923.  Prior to that time, churches of Christ in Cumberland County had been meeting at Linary, Lantana and Clifty.  In 1923, the J.E. Baxter family moved to Crossville from Cookeville, TN and, finding no congregation of the New Testament church here, they began meeting with the J.S. Schulgen family in their homes.  The nucleus of this congregation, in the beginning, was seven persons from those two families.

In May 1924, a tent meeting was conducted with Will J. Cullum preaching and J. Sterling Turner leading the singing.  By the close of this meeting, which lasted for several weeks, there were about 35 members of the church.  They rented a meeting place on the second floor of the Potter Building on North Main Street.  In October 1924, the L.P. Shanks family moved to Crossville, adding their strength to the newly formed group.  Brother Shanks later served as an elder of the church.  Late in 1924, a lot on the corner of First Street and Thurman Avenue was purchased and a brick building was erected.  The congregation met for the first time in their new, although unfinished, building in November 1925.  This building served as the meeting place for the church until January 1949. 

The original church building at 423 North Main Street was used for the first time on the second Sunday of January 1949.  The land upon which the building stands was given to the church by the late B.L. Dooley, Sr., and his wife.  Brother Dooley served as an elder until his death.   The later brother Clyde Wilson, who served as an elder until his death, supervised the construction of the building. 

The new building was completed during the summer of 1986.  The new facility is constructed of native Crab Orchard stone.

The congregation has been blessed with fine gospel preaching.  Although J.E. Baxter, J.D. Jones, and W.C. Phillips worked with the congregation as part-time preachers; the first located evangelist was Stoy Pate, who preached here from 1935 to 1940.  He was followed by James C. Bays, Rufus R. Clifford, A.R. Hill, Charles G. Caldwell, Roy J. Hearn, Ray Frizzell, Jr., John Jenkins, who served this congregation for more than twenty years, Jim Franks, Steve Riley, Sidney White, Wade Webster and our current minister, Barry Kennedy.