African American - Black Baptist / Episcopal Church at Hanna

Page by Bob Leathers

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1924 July 29: A land lease was signed with the Union Pacific Coal Company in Rock Springs for a Colored Baptist Church site at Hanna Wyoming.

1924-1925: The African American community obtained the original Methodist Church (built in 1890 - 1892) and with the help of the Union Pacific Coal Company moved the church from its original location near the Hanna Hotel to the new location north of the Union Pacific Railroad's coal chutes.

1925 Sunday December 14: A dedication service was held at the Colored Baptist Church honoring the purchase and erection of the new church.

The St. Johns Church was organized in 1925 by the African American community in Hanna. The church was located on the north side of the railroad tracks at the far east end of Front Street and across from the Union Pacific Railroad's coal chutes as shown in the picture below. (BL)

Hanna 1939-1940. Colored Baptist Church on Front Street (Edited image from the Hearne Collection)

New Colored Baptist Church at Hanna with the Congregation that attended the Dedication Services (Picture Courtesy of Mrs. Charles Brooks) (UPCCEM, February 1925)

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Colored Baptist Church at Hanna
by T. H. Butler
Union Pacific Coal Company Employes' Magazine, February 1925

Hanna Churches (UPCCEM, June 1925)

New Colored Baptist Church at Hanna
by T, H. Butler

​The dedication services held at the Colored Baptist Church here on Sunday, December the 14th, were well attended and much enjoyed by a number of our white citizens who joined with the colored folks to formally dedicate their new church to the services of God.

The program for the day opened with services at the Church in the morning, the Rev. W. T. Green, Field Secretary and Financial Agent of the Inter-Mountain States Baptist Association, officiating. At 12 o’clock, noon a scrumptious repast was served at the First Aid Hall, in appreciation of the assistance given by the citizens of Hanna toward the purchase and erection of the Church, and same was well attended, and very much enjoyed by all participating.

At 3:00 P. M. another service was held. Rev. S. L. Morgan, Pastor of the Episcopal Church, led in prayer. Addresses were made by Mr. G. W. Hughes, Rev. S. L. Morgan, Rev. W. T. Green, T. H. Butler, and Miss L. B. Mayo, President of the Woman’s Auxiliary to the Inter-Mountain Baptist Association, for Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Old time hymns and Jubilee songs were sung. Mrs. S. L. Morgan, wife of the Pastor of the Episcopal Church, officiated at the organ. At the conclusion of the dedicatory ceremonies, the congregation and officiating Pastors, Deacons and Laymen again repaired to the First Aid Hall were there awaited the fried chicken and all the good things that go with it.

Rev. W. T. Green was assisted by the Rev. S. L. Morgan at the evening service.
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Much credit and honor is due the handful of colored people here, for their untiring efforts and hard work in connection with the purchase and erection of the Church; we make special mention of Mrs. Charles Brooks, who since arriving here from her home in Indiana, has been a tireless worker in the interest of the Church and the uplifting of her race. May she be spared for many years to come, so that she may continue to carry on the good work, started by her, is the wish of her many friends here. (New Colored Baptist Church at Hanna by T. H. Butler - Union Pacific Coal Company Employee Magazine, June 1925)

1951 December 1: St. John's Episcopal Church for the African American People of Hanna. (Drawing from Hanna Field by Harv Wilbur) (Hanna Basin Museum)

1951 December 1: Hanna's St. John's Episcopal Church for the African American People of Hanna (Drawing from Hanna Field by Harv Wilbur) (Hanna Basin Museum)

St. John's Hanna
​(Hanna Field: Story of a Fledgling Episcopal Priest and his Six Wyoming Missions by Harv Wilbur)

Father Kellam had a great deal to do with St. Johns, Hanna. The congregation was started in 1925 through the untiring efforts and hard-work of about 40 black people. They purchased the old Methodist Church building dating back to 1892, and with the aid of the Coal Company moved it to its location just north of the coal chutes where the incoming steam locomotives were fueled. Being small in size it was not easy for them to find a minister. Pastors from the Hanna Methodist Church helped out and conducted services whenever they could. When Fr. Kellam arrived they had been without a minister for some time and their building had been badly deteriorating. Father Kellam offered his services. They were gladly accepted. He held services for them regularly, conducting them in what one writer called "an evangelical way." A year later the congregation decided to adopt the full Episcopal services, and when on Feb. 26, 1939, Bishop Ziegler arrived there were numerous baptisms, 20 confirmations, and the welcoming of the congregation into full communion of the Episcopal Church. What had been St. Johns Baptist Church became the Church of St. John the Baptist.

During my time in Hanna St. Johns still had a small congregation with excellent lay leadership. Its Sunday school was healthy, and a joy. Sunday worship was at 9 a.m. Nathan Gillespie, a retired miner and widower, was Sr. Warden. In the community he was responsible for opening and closing graves at the Hanna Cemetery - and only he knew where everyone was buried. One summer the two of us painted the Church. It took us ten gallons of white paint and most of one week to finish the job. Hazel Hunt was church treasurer and in charge of the Sunday school. Helene Jackson was the organist.

The interior of the building was all "Episcopal" - divided chancel, choir, bishop's chair, sanctuary lamp, and even a sanctus bell that had once been used as chimes on a railroad diner. A faded set of Eucharitic vestments, long neglected and of indeterminate color, hung from a peg on the back wall. However the first thing you saw on entering the building was a large pot-belly stove that glowed its welcome on cold winter days. (This part of the Church was our parish hall.) For worship it was the 1928 Prayer Book, but for hymns it was from an old gospel song book. Their favorite ones were "In the Garden" and "The Old Rugged Cross." How they could sing!

The two congregations, St. Mark's and St. John's, worshipped separately, but on high holy days when I couldn't be in six places at once, we swapped back and forth from place to place. The kids of both congregations joined together in one Youth Group and met in their own room in the Rectory basement. Cartoons of each, together with their signatures decorated the brightly painted yellow calcimine walls. There were the Youth Sundays when they took over most of the service - including the sermon - the trips to Youth Conventions, and the New Years all-night with the kids at St. Thomas' in Rawlins.

What did I learn while at St. John's? I had always assumed that each ethnic group in Hanna had its own life style, its own food dishes whether it was Finn, Lankie, Japanese, Italian, Scandinavian, or Black. Not so. The folks at St. Johns were not just one more ethnic group. They were just as different from one another as "us Whites". As I look back they were a microcosm of what would happen not many years later in our country.

Richard and Hazel Hunt and their children would take positions of leadership. In 1972 Hazel was tragically killed in an automobile accident along with her daughter Merry Kay and her granddaughter Stacy, but Hazel would leave this life having served as an active participant in the Republican Party, the NAACP, and as a member of the Wyoming State Fair Employment Practices Commission. Richard Jr. and Carol, who had been active with the Youth would on - Richard becoming a physician specializing in Internal Medicine in Maryland, and Carol a Registered Nurse and wife of an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of New York. Roy Robinson, Jr. gained fame as a star player on Hanna High's basketball team. The only bad new - years afterwards Sarah Cummings would tell me that two of the boys I Baptisted were the ones who started the Watts Riot in California.
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Nathan Gillespie and I would go on doing the things we always assumed that Christians were supposed to do, yet underneath there was a rumble of things to come. In the musical, "My Fair Lady" Rex Harrison sang, "Why can't women be more like us?" Why can't these folks be more like us nice white folks? It wasn't until 15 years later that we began to find out why. (Hanna Field: Story of a Fledgling Episcopal Priest and his Six Wyoming Missions by Harv Wilbur) (Hanna Basin Museum)

1950's: The St. John's Church was without a congregation after the Union Pacific Coal Company closed its coal mines in 1954.

1970's: The church building was purchased by a private individual in the early 1970's. Since the building sat on Union Pacific Railroad property it had to be moved. The new owner moved the church building to Hanna's Butler's Addition and remodeled it. 

2021 September 28: St. John's is lived in today at ​608 Lincoln, Hanna, Wyoming and is pictured below.

St. Johns Church for African Americans in Hanna - Black Church in 2021. (Image by Gene Buckendorf for the Hanna Basin Museum Website)

July 29th 1924: Union Pacific Coal Company at Rock Springs, Wyoming
Land Lease for a Colored Baptist Church at Hanna, Wyoming

The lease was signed by Nathan Gillespie for the Church.