The Barn

"This old building was built as the camp meeting tabernacle for the holiness sect known as the Immanuel Missionaries. They had a substantial population all over the west side from about the time of the Great War (WWI) until in the 1980’s. Their year round church home was over on Cucharras and 27th. The Immanuel Missionaries had a school for elementary through high school and it had what was referred to as a Bible College. The Missionaries were called the long skirts because all the women wore dresses that were to reach down to the woman’s ankles and wrists. The fabric was to be something modest and plain that didn’t call attention to the dress or the wearer. When I was young in the 1960’s the frantic did get attention because it was uniquely out of date. The Missionaries were similar to the Amish but not at all German. The west side at that time was an area where many of the Pilgrim Holiness sect made homes and they also formed a camp meeting on the other side of Fountain Creek. There were a couple of small but very vibrant Pilgrim churches. One was on 25th up the hill above the old Midland School building. The main way a person could tell the difference between Pilgrims and Missionaries would be by looking at the fabric colors women wore. Pilgrims would wear very deep green or bright blue. It was still a single color but that color was a striking shade of sky blue. For the Missionaries that would have been much too gaudy and ostentatious. It was a sin for a person to dress such that they called attention to oneself. The men were always dressed in plain single dark color pants with a light blue long sleeved shirt for work and a more well off man might have white shirts for the Lord’s Day. The fields from the back of the houses along Robinson all the way to 26th Street, Bott and up to the backside of the houses along Hagerman, were filled with vehicles on the Sundays during the summer when the Missionaries gathered. The Barn as it is called now was the site for camp meeting style revival services that would go on for 3 or maybe even 4 hours. They would sing and pray until all were certain that everyone under the roof was prayed through to the throne of God. Immanuel Missionaries would have no part of women dressing in mannish clothes with wearing of pants. As for men in dresses, I’m pretty sure the Missionaries would have found the notion beyond comprehension. Missionaries did not have televisions, did not attend public schools, did not swaying with music in services lest the demon of dance be invited in. Missionaries thought the Pilgrims were too liberal, and Pilgrims thought the Nazarenes, Wesleyan Methodists, and Free Methodists were too worldly. All of these groups believed the Baptists, every last one of them, had just had themselves over to Satan. The Southern Baptists that we consider conservative, to the Missionaries and Pilgrims, were so reprobate as to be handed to lasciviousness and concupiscence. Who else remembers when this was the place where the Missionaries gathered every year in July and August?"

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"Great location for great friends and fun times"