{"nrhp_refnum":"98000928","name":"New Corinth Baptist Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1178 Hooks Mill Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Americus","county":"Sumter County","state":"GA","lat":32.05265892800003,"lon":-84.02240344099994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1998-08-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Landscape Architecture","Art"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 6.6-acre rural site about five miles south of Americus in Sumter County, Georgia, with a one-story frame Baptist church built c. 1884, an adjoining African-American cemetery, and a 1980s baptismal pool beside Philema Creek.","why_significant":"The church and cemetery are significant for their association with the African-American community of rural Sumter County from Reconstruction onward, when the church was the center of community life. The cemetery is also significant for landscape architecture and art because its layout and hand-lettered or stamped cement markers reflect traditional African-American burial practices. The church building itself is not claimed as architecturally significant because of its many alterations.","narrative":"New Corinth Baptist Church is a rural church and cemetery on about six and a half acres south of Americus, Georgia, set among trees along Philema Creek. The one-story, gable-front frame church dates from about 1884 and rests on brick piers. It has been altered over time, with a balcony, a stage, replacement windows, sheetrock interior finishes and a concrete-block rear addition from 1970-1971. Oral tradition says the congregation began among laborers of planter William Hooks, and association records show 144 members in 1884, growing to 294 by 1894. A school operated at the church into the 1940s. The adjoining cemetery has family plots, unmarked graves identified by depressions, and concrete markers with names and dates stamped or written by hand in wet cement. It was listed for its ethnic heritage and for the cemetery's landscape and funerary art, with burials continuing to 1947.","period_of_significance":"c.1884-1947","architect_builder":"Not known.","architectural_style":"No Style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The church continues to serve the local African American Baptist community as a place of worship, though the congregation is smaller and older than in past decades. The cemetery is retained with difficult access and some burials marked only by depressions.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:42.973348-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/98000928.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93209532","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q134457829"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/sumter-county/new-corinth-baptist-church-98000928/"}