2023 List

Centennial Baptist Church

Completed in 1905, Centennial Baptist Church was designed in the Gothic Revival style by African American architect Henry James Price. The church is one of only 17 National Historic Landmarks in Arkansas. It is exceptionally significant for its association with Dr. Elias Camp Morris. Dr. Morris, who pastored at Centennial from 1879 until his death in 1922, was a nationally known figure in the Baptist denomination, serving as publisher of The Baptist Vanguard and president of the National Baptist Convention. Morris was also a founder of Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock. He served as a delegate to state and national Republican conventions and was appointed an ambassador to the Belgian Congo by President Theodore Roosevelt. When Dr. Morris died in 1922, the membership of Centennial Baptist Church numbered more than 1,000.

Regular services have not been held at Centennial Baptist Church for decades. Beginning in the early 1990s, work was done to stabilize the church, but a full restoration was never completed. In 2019, the building’s ownership changed, renewing efforts to save it. Unfortunately, on April 12, 2020, straight line winds severely damaged the church, pushing the front wall down and lifting the roof off of the sanctuary. It remains in this precarious state today. A structural assessment was completed in spring 2021, outlining recommendations to safely stabilize the structure, but funding remains an issue. Centennial Baptist Church was actually included on Preserve Arkansas’s 2006 and 2018 Most Endangered Places lists, and it is being included again to reemphasize the importance of the property and the urgent need for action to preserve what remains.