West Peoria Residents' Association

  After serving its own congregation for 100 years and the community of West Peoria for 85 years, the United Disciples Christian Church has found it necessary to end its ministry and close the doors of its home at 2018 W. Kellogg Avenue.    Having begun its history as the West Bluff Christian Chapel in 1910, the church changed its name to the West Bluff Christian Church when it built its new home in West Peoria in 1924.  In 2005 two churches from this denomination—West Bluff Christian Church and the Howett Street Christian Church—merged together at the Kellogg Avenue location to become the United Disciples Christian Church.   All Peoria area churches that belong to the denomination of Christian Churches owe their origin to the First Christian Church, established in Peoria in 1845, at a time when there were 22 churches in Peoria, then a town of 2,500.  This original church did not have a church building until it located in downtown Peoria in 1855.  After the original building was destroyed by fire in 1913, First Christian Church bought a building at 209 Madison Avenue, where it remained until 1974, when the church built a new church at its present location at 6400 N. University Street.   In 1909, in keeping with its mission to add new churches in new areas as the city grew, First Christian Church organized the Howett Street congregation—led by the Rev. A. B. Tyng, Sr.  In 1917 that new congregation built the Howett Street Christian Church on the corner of Howett and Shelley Streets.   First Church’s second “offspring” was born in 1910, when a mission chapel called West Bluff Christian Chapel was built in one day on a 75-foot by 150-foot lot on the northeast corner of Main and Underhill Streets.  Of course, the Howett Street congregation helped. This lot, costing $1800, was located in what was then considered one of the best residential areas of Peoria, which then had a population of 67,000.  This site was served by the city’s streetcar line and was within walking distance of 8,000 people.  The Howett Street minister, the Rev. William Price—who had been a brick mason in England— laid the foundation and chimney for the chapel.   At 7 a.m. on Monday, May 30, 1910 (Decoration Day), 5,000 onlookers from Peoria and neighboring towns came to watch 70 union carpenters erect a 24-foot by 60-foot building with a 12-foot ceiling and a total height of 25 feet.  True to the times, the written account of this event mentions that, “Each lady who wished was given the chance to drive a nail.”  The churchmen carried out other non-union tasks.  Horse-drawn machinery hauled materials and leveled the ground.  Undoubtedly, sticking to their traditional roles, the women served meals in shifts so as not to interrupt the work.   By 6 p.m. the church—painted and with electric lights installed—was completed with an adjoining coal shed and a brick walkway.  The labor and most materials had been donated, so the project worth $2,500 had cost only $525.  By 6:30 p.m. church members from both congregations came together for a gala supper and worship service.   In 1915 a kitchen was added on to the chapel and a piano was purchased with funds raised from events called “Cadillac Picnics,” held in city parks.   For fourteen years, the West Bluff Christian Chapel’s 21 charter members and later additions to the congregation were officially members of First Church. The chapel served primarily as a Bible school, which began with classes on Sunday afternoons—a practice that continued until World War I.  In 1913, when First Church was destroyed by fire, its congregation met for six months for all its services at the chapel, the Shrine Temple, or the Jewish Synagogue until the new church on Madison was acquired.   In 1910, there were 70 churches in Peoria; the nearest church neighbors of this chapel were the two Protestant churches—Hale Chapel and the Westminster Presbyterian Church—and St. Marks Roman Catholic Church, which was within sight four blocks to the south on Underhill.  Of course, nearby were the Bradley Polytechnic Institute and the residential area known as the Uplands.   By the 1920’s Main Street, the city’s new business district no longer seemed to be a suitable location for the chapel.  A new site on Kellogg Street in West Peoria Township became the new home of the West Bluff Christian Church (no longer to be just a chapel) through the influence of Mrs. Lulu M. Burner, a former missionary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who had returned to the United States in 1913 and had become active in the chapel.  Burner died in 1927, just after the church established its new home in West Peoria.   In the spring of 1924, after selling the chapel for $7,500, the church fathers purchased a lot at the southwest corner of Kellogg and Cedar Streets for $650 in this community of about 3,400 people.  At the time Kellogg Avenue did not connect with Western Avenue.  According to the historical records, this new congregation considered West Peoria to be their Promised Land.  A few years earlier, this rich corn-farming area had transformed into a community of small stores, and homes—many whose owners grew grapes in their yards.   At a cost of $4,850, this congregation set about to build a basement church on a lot of high weeds with no adjoining sidewalks or paved streets.  In the immediate vicinity, there were few houses and no other churches—just the kind of place where this small congregation expected “to grow and serve the splendid community,” which showed promise of becoming a rapidly growing residential district.   On December 7, 1924, West Bluff Christian Church with 49 charter members became a separate and independent church with the support and blessing of its parent church—First Christian—and its sister churches—Howett Street Christian and the Glen Oak Christian Church established in 1916.   During the spring seasons, this basement church was frequently flooded and had to be bailed out with buckets.  During heavy rains, a foot-deep lake of water formed at the corner of the lot, making the unpaved streets muddy and nearly impassable.   Finally, by July 1930, work began to build a church on top of the basement church.  During the construction time, the congregation met at Whittier School.  Dedicated in November 1930, this $20,000 edifice built of Hytex tan brick was called “one of the most beautiful of its size in the city” by the Peoria Star. The new church had a sanctuary with theatre-type seats and classrooms and offices on either side of the worship area.  By 1931 the streets surrounding the new church were paved.    On February 19, 1939, a service attended by an overflow crowd was held to dedicate the $2,500 Kimball organ and chimes that had been installed to enhance the music ministry of the church.    Purchased in February 1941, the first West Bluff parsonage at 2209 (old 303) W. Alice Street became the home of Rev. Lloyd V. Channels, who also taught a religious class at Woodruff High School.  In the 1960s the Alice Street parsonage was sold, and a new one at 2026 W. Kellogg was purchased and remodeled.  In 1963 the house between the church and the parsonage was also acquired.  In 1978 the Kellogg Street parsonage was sold as the new pastor and his family chose to buy their own home.    Because of a growth in membership from 173 in 1941 to 324 in 1948, West Bluff once again began a building project.  On May 1, 1949, a dedication was held for the extension of the building further south by about one-third to provide more classrooms and a large fellowship hall. The sanctuary was also remodeled.   A $164,000 building project—dedicated on September 24, 1967—included the addition of a two-story education unit on the west side, remodeling of the sanctuary to add 100 more seats, new pews, and new carpet; extension of the foyer; replacement of the front steps; addition of a new parlor, library and staff offices; and provisions for more off-street parking.   West Bluff Christian Church celebrated its 75th anniversary on the weekend of May 31-June 2, 1985.  The last two decades—the 1980s and 1990s—resulted in a decline in membership at West Bluff Christian Church, reaching an all-time low near 80.  The Howett Street church had dwindled to about 45.  Therefore, the two churches merged on July 1, 2005, to become the United Disciples Christian Church, maintaining the West Peoria location. Part 2   The West Bluff Christian Church-always reaching out to the community around it-leaves a legacy of ministries, two of which were unique.  From 1949 into the late 1950s, West Bluff Christian provided Thanksgiving dinners to which Bradley University's foreign students from countries such as Holland, Japan, Belgium, Iraq, Korea, Russia, Columbia, Jordan, and China were invited.  Active in this effort were Dr. Lawrence Lew, a well-known Bradley professor, and his family-all members of the church.    Probably the most well-known of West Bluff Christian's ministries is Common Place-begun in the 1960s and incorporated in 1967 under the directorship of West Bluff member, Richard Tunks.  The Howett Street Christian Church building is the headquarters for this comprehensive inner city ministry of neighborhood development, emergency care, and pre-school education.  The building was purchased from the church in 1993 for $1.    In 1936 the West Bluff Messenger became a monthly and later a weekly newsletter of the church that was published until 1951.    In 1933 West Bluff offered its first Vacation Church School, the largest in the city that year with over 200 children in attendance.  Also, in the 1930s, a strong Christian Endeavor association for young people was also active at West Bluff, and one of its pastors was the chief sponsor of the Peoria Christian Youth Council for college-age young people-an organization that sponsored many interdenominational and interracial events in the city.    From the earliest years, West Bluff Christian Church and West Peoria always enjoyed a special relationship.  According to the church's historical records, "What had begun as a rather natural association with the neighborhood when West Bluff was the only church had become slowly and surely an intentional pattern of ministry to the growing vicinity." The 1948 church yearbook states that the church "seeks to serve the community of West Peoria and its surrounding territory."    The church even became a place to which West Peorians were invited for an evening's entertainment.  Organized in January 1931 as a way to raise money for the church's building debt, the West Peoria Fellowship Club was organized by the men of the church to offer dramatic presentations and other events to area residents-a practice that continued for many years. Over the years the church has invited West Peorians to participate in other social activities such as Quilting Club of the 1940s and 50s and the Senior Citizens' Fellowship begun in 1971.    In 1941 West Peoria and the church began a special relationship when West Peoria's first Boy Scout troop, sponsored by the church, was founded.  That partnership lasted until the recent closing of the church and has produced one of the strongest scouting programs in central Illinois.    West Bluff Christian Church has been more than a good neighbor.  Its service to West Peoria includes many activities such as the July 4th Flag Raising Ceremony at the flagpole, the scouting program, the use of the church at election time, and civic meetings held at the church before West Peoria had its own city hall.    In the late 1990s, West Bluff Church offered West Peorians yet another service by turning a junk room into a library of 3,000 books donated by church members and West Peoria residents. Others donated books, bookshelves, carpeting, a computer, a TV, and their time to staff the small library. In 2001 Marge McCaughey, the person most responsible for establishing and maintaining this library, was awarded the Studs Terkel Humanities award-a bronze medallion- by the West Peoria City Council.  McCaughey was also instrumental in the founding of Common Place and tutored West Bluff children at the church. According to the Peoria Journal Star, the Terkel award-"named after an oral historian who chronicled the extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary Americans and is given to those whose efforts often go unnoticed- was awarded to about eighty others in the state through the Illinois Humanities Council.    Historical events in the United States played a role in the history of West Bluff Christian Church.  Both Prohibition-instituted by the Volstead Act, which became the 18th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on January 29, 1919-and the repeal of Prohibition through the passage of the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933, were studied and debated by the West Bluff congregation.  In fact, Mrs. Lulu M. Burner-the woman who influenced the church's move to West Peoria-had been the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, an organization established in the 1870s to fight against the societal ills caused by alcohol.    During World War I, the West Bluff Chapel joined the missionary and evangelistic efforts to spread the Gospel to soldiers returning from Europe and from American Army Camps.    Also, the great coal shortage in the winter of 1917-1918-one of the many negative effects of the war-forced the West Bluff Chapel and other churches to close down or curtail their services until warmer weather returned.    The Great Depression, begun with the collapse of the stock market in 1929, came right at the time the West Bluff congregation was building a church on top of the basement church at Kellogg.  In the 1920s, prices were high, some church members were jobless, and some had lost their homes.  However, the church continued raising money to pay off the frequently refinanced mortgage.   Unique fundraisers included "Jitney Dinners"- a meal where each helping cost five cents-and "Womanless Weddings"- popular fundraisers in the Midwest during the 1920s-1950s, featuring a cast of all men dressed for a formal wedding from flower girl to mother of the bride.     The Great Depression provided the church and this community a most visible symbol of unity-the flagpole, which stands at the northeast corner of the sanctuary-that was a gift from the Civil Works Administration laborers as a gesture of gratitude to the federal government for jobs it provided after the stock market crash.    In the 1930s West Bluff's minister-Rev. Barnett, who also served as the President of the Peoria Ministerial Association made up of 120 churches in 1936-became a crusader against corruption at a time when organized crime gangs (begun as a result of Prohibition) were active in Peoria and slot machine gambling machines-believed to be detrimental to society-were available in drugstores and grocery stores.  During this era Barnett, his family, and the church received bomb threats and other ominous warnings.  Eventually, the Illinois Liquor Commission banned slot machines from the county.    During World War II, the first Peorian to enter the U. S. Army under the conscription act was a West Bluff young man, Corporal T. Curtis Cation-a member of West Bluff Christian.  The congregation lost one of its young men-Capt. Max Talbott, a West Point graduate and a Silver Star recipient for bravery on Bataan.  He died of malaria in a Japanese prison camp on Corregidor.    In the 1950s, through the efforts of the church's Cross and Compass Sunday School Class and the Christian Women's Fellowship, the church provided a home and a new start for World War II refugees, including a husband from the Ukraine and his wife from Poland who had last been in a German detention camp, a Polish-born couple from a European refugee camp, a Czechoslovakian couple, and two Japanese families displaced from California.  Several of these refugees made their homes in West Peoria.     In the spring of 1972 West Bluff members were gathered at the church for the 100th Anniversary Disciples Women's Work, a celebration involving a dinner and a dance in costumes of the period.  The festivities were interrupted when the group saw great columns of smoke filling the sky from four blocks to the south, where fire destroyed half of the Jumer's Castle Lodge.    Information for these articles was taken, for the most part, from two historical booklets compiled by the West Bluff Christian Church, one covering the era from 1910-1974 and the other the era from 1974-1984.  Some information was taken from issues of the Peoria Journal Star.