{"nrhp_refnum":"83001850","name":"Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"301 N. Cool Spring St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Fayetteville","county":"Cumberland County","state":"NC","lat":35.053478504000054,"lon":-78.88114599099998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-07-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A brick Gothic Revival church at Cool Spring Street in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, erected 1893-1894 on the site of the congregation's earlier churches. It is the fourth church on the site and the first built of brick.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the church is tied to Fayetteville's first Methodist congregation, founded around 1800 by the free black preacher Henry Evans, which served both black and white members in an unusual way for early nineteenth-century North Carolina. Its present building is cited as a notable example of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century Gothic styling and as the work of black artisans James Williams and Joseph Steward, with notable beaded interior woodwork.","narrative":"Brick Gothic Revival church on Cool Spring Street in Fayetteville, North Carolina, erected in 1893-1894 on the site of the city's first Methodist congregation. The present building is the fourth church on the site and the first of brick. Its twin front towers, lancet windows with colored glass, and two-story gable-front facade reflect the revived Gothic style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Black carpenter James Williams and bricklayer Joseph Steward carried out the major construction, and Williams also made the beaded-board interior woodwork, including the heavily beamed ceiling in herringbone pattern. The congregation traces its origins to Henry Evans, a free-born black shoemaker-preacher who founded the Methodist church here around 1800 and ministered to a mixed congregation, which was unusual in the region at the time. After emancipation the church became the focus of Fayetteville's black Methodist community, and it later became part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.","period_of_significance":"1893-1894","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Gothic","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:40.605894-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/95/7175/47717595/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/83001850.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001850/0b11e9250b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001850/0b11e9250b-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Gerry Dincher","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evans_Metropolitan_AME_Zion_Church.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Gerry Dincher</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evans_Metropolitan_AME_Zion_Church.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"99000779","name":"Fayetteville Downtown Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/north-carolina/fayetteville-downtown-historic-district-99000779/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717595","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_Metropolitan_AME_Zion_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5415937"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/cumberland-county/evans-metropolitan-ame-zion-church-83001850/"}