{"nrhp_refnum":"85000587","name":"Houck's Chapel","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"9th Ave. and 17th St. NW","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hickory","county":"Catawba County","state":"NC","lat":35.74487284500003,"lon":-81.36853533699997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-03-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small frame Methodist chapel built in 1888 on the south side of 9th Avenue NW in Hickory, Catawba County, North Carolina, surrounded on three sides by a cemetery that dates from the 1890s.","why_significant":"The chapel is tied to the Reverend William K. Houck, who held a ten-day revival near Hickory in 1887 and preached at the church until 1947. It also reflects how Methodist congregations in late nineteenth century Catawba County split into smaller community churches, and it was the mother church to several congregations. It has remained in religious use under the terms of its original deed.","narrative":"Built in 1888 on the south side of 9th Avenue NW in Hickory, Houck's Chapel is a small, two-bay-wide, four-bay-deep frame church with German siding, a sheet metal gable roof and a belfry topped by a slender spire. A cemetery with burials from the 1890s onward surrounds it on three sides. The chapel grew out of a ten-day revival in 1887 led by the Reverend William K. Houck, a Morganton resident who held the meeting in a brush arbor on land owned by J. M. Frye. The next year a chapel was built nearby and named for the minister, who traveled about forty miles round trip to preach there until 1947. The congregation dissolved after his death in 1950, but the building stayed in religious use, first by an Assembly of God group and later by a Baptist congregation, as the donated land's deed required. The chapel is recognized for its role as a mother church to other Methodist congregations and for its link to Houck.","period_of_significance":"1888","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","B"],"status_note":"Condition listed as good and altered; the building is occupied and used in connection with a Baptist church.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:50.136116-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/51/7174/47717451/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/85000587.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85000587/7c4a498c93-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85000587/7c4a498c93-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Tylerg","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houck%27s_Chapel_Hickory_North_Carolina.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Tylerg</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houck%27s_Chapel_Hickory_North_Carolina.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717451","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houck%27s_Chapel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18151976"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/catawba-county/houcks-chapel-85000587/"}