Vestal United Methodist Church: A Cool History

What we now know as Vestal United Methodist Church was born in the summer of 1875, in a one-room log building on Sims Road that also served as Flenniken School, founded after Pastor James Lawson road up the Circuit from Sevierville to hold a revival. The original founders included some of the earliest land-owners in South Knoxville, including Jacob and Sarah Doyle, John and Isabell Edington, Wade and Elizabeth McDaniel, David and Amanda Thomas, Mary Jane Gilbert and Caroline King. 

In 1878, the church purchased two acres on Martin Mill Pike to build a chapel, naming it Jones Chapel Methodist Church in honor of Jack Jones, who contributed the first $100. That plot is now the church cemetery, where Jacob and Sarah Doyle and several other early South Knoxville settlers are buried.

Among Jones Chapel’s new members were Joseph Edington Acker, who was born on November 26, 1865, somewhere in Germany.  His wife was Alice Wells of Knoxville, Tennessee.  In 1916, they lived on Edington Road in Vestal, and they owned other property on Brown Road and Valley Drive.  In 1919, they gave “Lot 12, Martin Mill Pike” to Jones Chapel and served on its first Board of Trustees.

The church grew rapidly over the next few years, outgrowing Jones Chapel, especially its Sunday School.  Here is a picture of the Men’s Sunday School, taught by Addie Doyle, in 1916.

The church needed money, and the Ladies Aid Society found it - a whole $30,000!  They also needed an architect, and here’s where the story gets good. A Knoxville News Sentinel article published in 1925 notes that Vestal United Methodist Church nears completion.  It names the pastor, the builder, but is strangely silent as to the name of the architect, calling him only a “famous church architect from Birmingham, Alabama.”

One hundred years later, current Vestal church members Perry and Margaret Childress spent a rainy Saturday afternoon with the librarians of Tennessee Historical Society.  After several hours, Margaret googled “famous church architect of Birmingham Alabama” and an architect they had never heard of appeared:  Mr. Wallace A. Rayfield.  From that clue, things moved fast.  Perry contacted an Alabama librarian, who spent the evening in the Special Collections at Auburn University to confirm that, indeed, Wallace Rayfield is the architect of Vestal United Methodist Church.

Wallace Rayfield built during the same historic period as George and Charles Barber, and just like the Barbers, Mr. Rayfield sold many of his drawings through catalogue.  He was he second formally educated black architect in the United States, educated at Howard University and the Pratt Institute before getting his Architecture Degree at Columbia University.  Booker T. Washington hired him to teach mechanical drawing at Tuskegee Institute.  But while the Barbers work has been catalogued and celebrated for years, Wallace Rayfield’s work was lost.  Due primarily to racism at the turn of the century, his work was rarely credited to him.

The Great Depression dried up funding for new construction.  Mr. Rayfield died in February, 1941 from a stroke.  He had no money, and most of his work was lost or destroyed during a period in history when racism erased evidence of the important work of many black professionals. 

But in 1993, an Alabaman named Allen Durough found Mr. Rayfield’s drawings, literally in an abandoned barn.  He published a book of them in 2010.  In 2013, American Public Radio featured a story on Rayfield’s work. In 2017, the National Trust for Historic Preservation published an article featuring Rayfield. In 2022, the Wallace Rayfield Architectural Museum opened in Birmingham.

In 2024, Wallace Augustus Rayfield will not be forgotten in Vestal.  Vestal United Methodist Church is applying for designation as a National Historic Site and initiating a capital campaign to restore the building to its former glory.

Of course, we need help.  But even more, we welcome you to our fellowship.  Come celebrate Christ, receive a friendly smile, a good hug, a hot meal and a positive message, become enchanted with our beautiful stained glass windows, and marvel at the genius of Wallace Augustus Rayfield.