This is the first half of a two-part series on RP church buildings, both current and former.

Organized in 1816, Cincinnati was one of Ohio’s first RP churches. It first met downtown, built an Over-the-Rhine building in 1847, and moved to the West End in 1860. Finally, in 1930, the congregation moved a few blocks north to Dayton Street. Their new home was a brick Romanesque Revival structure that had been built for a Romanian Baptist church 11 years earlier. In addition to the 200-seat auditorium, the building comprises a collection of classrooms. Here, the congregation remained until January 1958, not long before their disorganization. The property is now occupied by Beams of Heaven Baptist Church.

Quinter was one of the last congregations founded by RP settlers moving to Kansas. Repeated droughts ended a settlement at nearby Collyer in 1883, but several families soon moved to Quinter, allowing it to be organized in 1887. They bought the town’s former school house for church use, but, by World War I, a new structure was needed. Completed in 1920, the current building features a mix of styles; its foundation walls use a type of concrete block popular at the time, while the upper parts are built in the Carpenter Gothic style more popular in previous decades.

In the late 19th Century, there were well over 1,000 RPs in New York City, and four congregations in Manhattan alone. Founded in 1830, the Second RP congregation occupied a succession of buildings as they grew to become the largest RPCNA congregation. In 1874, they bought a grand Midtown church—on 39th Street just three blocks from Times Square—that had been a synagogue. It remained their home until 1910, when shrinking numbers prompted them to merge with Fourth RP congregation and move farther north. Today, the site is occupied by large commercial buildings.

By far the oldest RP congregation in Australia is Geelong, founded in 1857 by Irish RP settlers. Just five years later, the congregation completed their current building. Designed in the Gothic Revival style, it is built of the same gray sandstone as two other churches in the same city block. Except for a small session-meeting room in the back, the building consists of the sanctuary only. Growth in recent decades has rendered the building too small, so the adjacent fellowship hall and former parsonage are used for classrooms and worship overflow.

Picture sources: Quinter is from the RP Archives in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Cincinnati is the author’s picture; and Geelong is the author’s wife’s picture.