For over a century, Mount Gilead Baptist Church has been a cornerstone of Fort Worth African American history.
Established in 1875 by a pastor and 12 formerly enslaved people, the congregation grew to become known as the “mother church” for Black Baptist churches across the city and became a hub for spiritual, cultural and community gatherings.
Now, nearly a year after members voted to put the building up for sale, Mount Gilead congregants are preparing to gather for worship at the historic church one last time.
Mount Gilead will host its last service inside the downtown Fort Worth church at 10 a.m. May 31. The service comes after church leadership received an offer for the building in April and the sale is now in progress, Pastor Lorenzo Jones IV said.
“With this sale of this church, we have the opportunity to really get a fresh start, to be able to minister to a new generation of believers and people who are seeking Christ,” Jones said. “We’re just really eagerly looking forward to where God is taking Mount Gilead in this next chapter.”
The congregation had been steadily dwindling for years, said Michele McGregor.
McGregor, 70, was a youth director for the church and is the granddaughter of the Rev. Christopher C. Harper — Mount Gilead’s longest-tenured pastor from 1943 to 1970. He was celebrated for installing central heating in the church, according to an archived portrait.
The Fort Worth native remembers the church being packed every Sunday from the balcony furnished with red and gold opera chairs to the main floor lined with wooden pews.
McGregor remembers hearing stories of her mother swimming in the church’s indoor pool. Her uncle would drive the bus to take the church youth around the city or to Baptist conventions, she said.
Mount Gilead was called the “silk stocking church” back in the day, McGregor said. The church’s membership was made up of educators and businessmen in the city, she said.
The church turned down numerous offers over the years from city and business leaders to buy the building, McGregor said.
As time went on, towering high-rises swallowed the skyline. The church had a front row seat to the bustling interstate system that helped grow the city around it.
The land in front of the church, once used for parking and picnics, no longer was available to the congregation, McGregor said. Church members had to pay for street parking and face getting ticketed for overstaying their time, she added.
Around the time parking became an issue, Mount Gilead faced dwindling attendance and diminished financial support along with the hefty cost to restore the aging building.
For a long time, the church has been struggling for survival, McGregor, a member of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church said. Over the years, she would visit to pray or donate to the congregation, she said.
“It’s a lot of history. There was a lot of love. Everyone cared for one another, and even though a lot of us left and went to other churches, we still have a love for Mount Gilead,” McGregor said. “I understand there is a time to move forward and this is the time.”
Concern about the future of the church building,which landed on Historic Fort Worth’s 2025 Most Endangered Places list, had grown over time.
Last summer, the congregation voted 19-4 to put Mount Gilead Baptist Church on the market. Now, the building is in the process of being sold to Airport Field Services LLC for $1.9 million, Jones said.
The sale gives the congregation an opportunity to start over and not have to worry about the cost that comes with maintaining such a historic building, Jones said.
Church members previously raised about $25,000 to fix the air conditioning system. Last Thanksgiving, some of the original galvanized steel pipes burst.
The church, constructed in 1912, wears its years openly.
The white Tuscan columns that greet congregants outside the red brick church have shrugged off some of their color. Light peering through the stained glass windows inside the church illuminates the paint escaping the walls. The wooden stairs groan underfoot as congregants proceed up to the balcony or down to the basement.
The congregation has been worshipping at William M. McDonald YMCA in southeast Fort Worth since February and hasn’t missed a Sunday service, Jones said. A portion of the funds from the sale will go toward purchasing a new building while the rest will go toward fueling different outreach or internal ministries, Jones previously told the Fort Worth Report.
“We can rebuild, and build a ministry that goes back to the root of what Mount Gilead stood for … and that’s to be a ministry for the community,” Jones said. “Now we have the ability to go in and really think about, how do we want this thing to look with this next chapter and this next season of Mount Gilead.”
Mount Gilead Baptist Church on Sept. 28, 2025. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)
History of the ‘mother church’
In 1875, Pastor C.A. Augustus and 12 former slaves founded Mount Gilead Church, which quickly grew to have 40 members, according to historical records. The founders built a church near 15th and Crump streets in a Black settlement known then as “Baptist Hill.”
The congregation moved to a new building off 13th Avenue and Jones Street in the late 1880s and, in the early 1910s, moved to its signature building on Grove Street.
Wallace Rayfield, the nation’s second formally trained African American architect, contributed to the design of the neoclassical church that is adorned with six columns and a stained glass dome.
The downtown building is sited such that it welcomes those driving into downtown from the east. But at the turn of the century, Jones previously told the Report, the church neighbored an area of town referred to as Fort Worth’s “Black Wall Street,” a bustling area of African American-owned businesses, pharmacies, doctor’s offices, barbershops, banks and more.
Mount Gilead was known for worship and community. The church was built with an indoor baptismal, a cafeteria, a nursery, a kindergarten and opera chairs in the balcony. Its library served as an educational hub filled with literature and was once home to a paralegal school.
The basement was built to include an indoor swimming pool, offering Black families an accessible place to swim in a time where public pools were racially segregated, Jones said.
Over the years, other congregations came out of Mount Gilead, including the Greater Saint James, Mount Zion and Pleasant Mount Gilead church, Jones said.
Mount Gilead’s building holds fond memories for DeLois Jean Paley, who first visited the church in 1960. She and her husband joined after moving to Fort Worth, where they took jobs as teachers. Paley’s husband was an art and history teacher at I.M. Terrell Academy, the city’s first public school for Black students and O.D. Wyatt High School, Paley previously told the Report.
Mount Gilead may become more than what it was in the past if congregants continue to be faithful in God, Paley said.
“What God has done for this church is because we were so faithful in everything that he allowed us to stay here this long,” Paley said. “God will not forsake you nor leave you. So he will be there for us, no matter where we go.”
Next chapter
The upcoming service will be a time to pay honor to the building that has served the congregation for over a century, Jones said.
After that, the congregation will begin cleaning, moving things out that the church wants to keep and donating items it plans to part ways with.
A key thing that Jones said he continually reminds congregants: The sale isn’t the last chapter of Mount Gilead.
“We don’t know what tomorrow has. We just trust that God is going to be there to lead us into this next chapter,” Jones said. “So that’s what we’re really, really excited about.”
McGregor is preparing to be at Mount Gilead’s Sunday service and is inviting friends who were former members to join her, she said.
The Fort Worth resident is praying for a smooth transition for the congregation and Jones. She is also wondering what will happen to the historic building in the future, she said.
“I know that wherever they go, God will be with them, because they are the church, not the building,” McGregor said. “It’s just a structure without the people of God.”
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.
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