A History of North Omaha’s Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church

1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, 19th century, 20th century, Architecture, Black churches, Kountze Place, Lake Street, Listed on National Register of Historic Places, Lost history, North 24th Street, Official Omaha Landmark, Presbyterian, Religion, Segregation, Wrecked buildings

A History of North Omaha’s Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church

Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church was a short-lived attempt by a fleeting denomination to maintain a significant presence in North Omaha. Despite the hard work and commitment by African American members, the congregation ultimately failed. However, they did succeed in ensuring a gorgeous landmark that celebrated its 110th anniversary of existence in 2020. This is a…

Adam F.C. Fletcher

August 3

7 minutes

Starting from Different Places

The story of Calvin begins in several Presbyterian congregations. When the North Omaha community was young, the denomination claimed several neighborhoods with distinct churches to serve the different corners, and none of them were called Calvin Memorial.

Instead, the stories of the congregations of Second Presbyterian, Knox Presbyterian, North Presbyterian and Hillside Presbyterian are all essential to understanding where Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church came from and where it went.

Second Presbyterian Church

Second Presbyterian Church was one of the oldest churches in Nebraska, originally established in 1861. When it reestablished itself as part of the Saunders Street Mission Chapel in 1881, the church was renamed North Presbyterian and grew more. Then, with a vigorous new minister in 1887, the congregation doubled its size. With a new building at North 24th and Nicholas Streets, it became Second Presbyterian Church in 1890. When they moved, the church sold Second Presbyterian to a Jewish congregation called B’nai Jacob Anshe Sholem.

Knox Presbyterian Church

In October 1887, Knox Presbyterian Church was organized in North Omaha. Built on hopes and dreams of a thriving congregation, they first met in a storefront at North 19th and Lake Streets in the Near North Side neighborhood. After that, the church grew quickly and they bought a church, then grew some more and built a church.

Becoming North Presbyterian Church

This is a circa 1912 postcard of North Presbyterian Church at North 24th and Wirt Streets in North Omaha.

In 1908, Second Presbyterian and Knox Presbyterian merged to become the North Presbyterian Church. They built a grand church at the corner of North 24th and Wirt Streets on the edge of the wealthy suburban Kountze Place neighborhood in 1910. Designed by Frederick Henninger in the Neo-Classical Revival style, the building features four colossal limestone Ionic columns holding large portico in front of a gigantic dome. Henninger was clearly inspired by the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition that happened on this site just a decade before North Presbyterian was established.

Merger to form Calvin Memorial Presbyterian

1933 North Presbyterian Church dome, North Omaha, Nebraska — In 1938, a construction company renovated the interior dome of the North Presbyterian Church. This was taken upon its completion that year.

White flight took exacted a toll on the Kountze Place neighborhood. With their fears stoked by racist media and politicians, white residents were afraid of their new African American neighbors who started moving in during the late 1940s. That decade, middle- and upper-class white congregants of North Presbyterian Church started moving en masse to west Omaha. The toll on the church included members and money.

Hillside Presbyterian Church, N. 28th and Miami Streets, North Omaha, Nebraska — This is an architectural drawing of the second home to Hillside Presbyterian Church, located at N 28th and Miami Streets.

In 1954, the church was merged with Hillside Presbyterian Church, a historically Black church in the Near Northside Neighborhood. Prior to this, Hillside had absorbed a formerly all-white congregation called Bethany Presbyterian Church. Bethany was Omaha’s first German Presbyterian church that was founded in 1881 and located at North 20th and Willis Streets. When they merged, both African American and white congregants formed the new Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church.

This is Rev. Charles Tyler (1913-?) in 1983. In this photo he’s shown in Omaha preparing to leave for a march in Washington DC commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

Funded as an outreach mission by the Nebraska Presbyterians, the congregation thrived for several decades. Initially celebrated as an integrated congregation, the African American minister of Hillside, Rev. Charles Tyler, became minister of the new congregation in May 1954.

In 1962, after redlining was formally ended by the federal Fair Housing Act, white flight intensified and Calvin Memorial’s congregation became all African American. Rev. Tyler guided the congregation into the Civil Rights movement, including joining the Search Results Web results March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. He left Calvin by 1964. Shot in 1965, a documentary about the racial segregation in North Omaha called A Time for Burning included a youth group from Calvin Memorial, which by then was an all-Black congregation.

My research found that when several riots struck North Omaha between 1966 and 1969, Calvin Memorial didn’t experience notable damage. The congregation seemingly soldiered on and suffered the consequences of the City of Omaha’s program of benign neglect for the community during the 1970s, when they demolished hundreds of homes in the surrounding neighborhoods in addition to dozens of storefronts along North 24th Street. The size of the Calvin Memorial congregation kept shrinking.

In 1985, the church building was declared an Omaha Landmark by the Omaha Landmark Heritage Preservation Commission. The next year in 1986, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Loosing the Presbyterian Church

This picture shows the Church of Jesus Christ Whole Truth at N. 24th and Wirt Streets in North Omaha, Nebraska — This picture shows the Church of Jesus Christ Whole Truth in 2012.

After years of diminishing size and a lack of support for their missionary purpose, in 1991, Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church was merged with Fairview Presbyterian Church, and the new congregation was named the New Life Presbyterian. They stayed at the site of the former Fairview Presbyterian Church at North 40th and Pratt Streets, and are still there today.

The former North Presbyterian / Calvin Memorial Presbyterian building became home to a new ministry called the Church of Jesus Christ Whole Truth in 1992. However, after more than 20 years that church moved out in 2014 to a new location.

A New Life

This is an artist's concept of what the POC Collaborative Community Resource Center at 3105 North 24th Street, formerly known as Calvin Memorial, will look like when its completed. — This is an artist’s concept of what the POC Collaborative Community Resource Center at 3105 North 24th Street, formerly known as Calvin Memorial, will look like when its completed.

In January 2024, a nonprofit organization called the POC Collaborative announced its pending renovations of the building and its repurposing as “a community center where there’s access to resources whether that be technology or business development services. A place for small businesses to launch,” according to Katrina Adams, the executive director of the nonprofit. The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has given the POC Collaborative a $100,000 grant to renew the space and repurpose it as planned.

Community engagement by the POC Collaborative is focusing on bringing the neighborhood in to help build support for the new purpose.

The building continues to be a spectacular landmark for the renaissance of North 24th Street. Between its status as a local landmark and its listing as a nationally important building, I hope at least a plaque is installed outside insisting the entire city recognizes its beauty and history.

You Might Like…

A History of the Intersection of North 20th and Lake Streets

POC Collaborative official website
“Calvin Memorial / North Presbyterian Church” listing on the Omaha Landmark Heritage Preservation Commission website.
“National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form for North Presbyterian Church” for the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service in 1986.
“‘A Different Kind of Church’: Historic North Omaha Church Envisioned as a Community Center” Erin Duffy Omaha World-Herald (February 26, 2020)

BONUS PICS!

North Presbyterian Church, 3105 North 24th Street, North Omaha, Nebraska — These are Frederick Henninger’s 1909 blueprints for the North Presbyterian Church in the Kountze Place neighborhood in North Omaha.

This image illustrates the c1920 appearance of Omaha North Presbyterian Church. — This is a c1920 postcard of the North Presbyterian Church at North 24th and Wirt Streets.

Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Omaha — This is a 1984 picture of Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church, 24th and Wirt Streets, North Omaha.

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4 responses to “A History of North Omaha’s Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church”

awkimbrough

August 15, 2019 at 10:19 pm

Thank you! Calvin was my grandmother’s church. She was a longtime organist and very prolific in many volunteer ventures. Helen Douthy (1918-2008)was a “Hidden Figure” as she was involved in many top secret projects at OFB in the 1950s and early 1960s. Imagine a black female with so much wisdom and yet, she remained unrecognized.

Reply
TD Sanders

November 6, 2019 at 2:59 pm

Helen Douthy was a gifted and talented woman in our community in various forms of art and music.

Reply
Allison Newland

May 6, 2022 at 9:18 pm

I was baptized at Calvin. My mother was a church secretary, and choir member.

Reply
Nancy King

January 15, 2024 at 3:21 pm

Was H. Franklin King a pastor there in the early 1950s?

Reply

A History of North Omaha’s Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church