The Kansas Convention Church, 1900

I came across this photograph a few days ago, and wanted to share it with some background information, but the more I looked into it, the deeper the story got, so think of this as the first part of an open ended series.

This photograph was taken on October 4, 1900 at the Universalist church in Junction City, Kansas but (if I’m reading it right) this is neither that church’s membership nor all the participants of the Kansas Universalist Convention that met there.

“Group of Universalist Convention Church Members” KU Libraries Digital Collections. Joseph Judd Pennell Photographs Collection (1888-1923). https://digital.lib.ku.edu/ku-pennell/1028

This was the Convention Church: a once-a-year congregation made up of those Universalists without their own local parish, and perhaps a few besides. (More on that later.) Even more interesting, at 200 members, it was the largest parish in the state convention. How did that come to be? What was the function of the Convention Church? And what happened to the Kansas Universalists?

3 Replies to “The Kansas Convention Church, 1900”

  1. The short answer is that they died out. The Junction City congregation persisted at least as late as the 1960s, when it appears in the UUA directory –
    https://listview.lib.harvard.edu/lists/drs-431987185
    So, too, did the congregation in Hutchinson. I preached at the successor congregation there some years ago, and was told that the minister was chastised by the Board for writing things in the local paper that were too incendiary and eventually the church folded.
    According to the records of the First Universalist Church of Denver, where I now serve, one of our ministers left to serve the Junction City Church in the early 20th century, when things were apparently going better there than in Denver. I seem to recall seeing mention of a congregation in Abilene, as well. But basically the same story as in so many places, rural churches that faded away. As far as I know the only surviving Unitarian or Universalist congregation in the state with an uninterrupted history is the Wichita Unitarian congregation.
    The old Universalist building is still in Junction City, where a small Pentecostal church now worships-
    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pentecostal+Church/@39.0272246,-96.8331242,3a,75y,179.69h,95.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQkHBDqU4nCiLUnTsl8XDmA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x87bc4946fb5cd54d:0x82e75a8c3b29da0b!2sJunction+City,+KS!3b1!8m2!3d39.0286093!4d-96.8313978!3m4!1s0x87bc494d80eb14f7:0x2f2ef0d3a8bc92a6!8m2!3d39.0271876!4d-96.8327379

  2. Thanks. They were suffering even in 1900. But there are stories just below the surface I hope to tease out.

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