King's Memorial United Methodist Church

King's Memorial United Methodist Church, formerly St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, evolved out of the Decatur First Methodist Episcopal Church. founded in 1827. In 1854, Richard Rather, Charity Barnes Rather, and Robert Murphy led the church's black congregants in hiring Sawney Price to build a separate sanctuary for them at Lafayette and Bank Street. After the Civil War, Northern Methodists returned to Alabama and, in 1867 at Talladega, the congregation was received into the Alabama Conference. During this Reconstruction era, the Methodist Freedmen's Aid Society used the church building, then located on Market and Oak Street, as a school. In 1881, the congregation moved to this site, soon after which the City of Decatur leased the church building as the first city-supported facility for black education. Lightning destroyed the church building and parsonage in 1907. The congregation worshipped in railroad cars until famed architect Wallace A. Rayfield was employed to design a raised cottage-style brick sanctuary. The Rev. Willis Jefferson King, later elected Bishop, was invited to lead a revival which proved so successful that the congregation changed the church's name to honor the preacher's father in 1908. In 1978, King's Memorial and Jones Chapel Congregations united to strengthen the Methodist presence in the area. Church buildings built in 1986 and 2014 are currently located on this McCartney Street site.