{"nrhp_refnum":"99000061","name":"Mars Hill Baptist Church","other_names":["Fries Memorial Moravian Church"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1331 E. Fourth St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Winston-Salem","county":"Forsyth County","state":"NC","lat":36.09955986800003,"lon":-80.22925273299995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1999-01-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Black","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A brick Late Gothic Revival church with a corner tower at the northwest corner of East Fourth Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, erected in 1915 for a white Moravian congregation. It is accompanied by a pebble-dash Queen Anne style parsonage next door.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the church is significant chiefly for its association with the African-American Mars Hill Baptist congregation, which bought the building in 1944 during the neighborhood's rapid racial transition, and for its architecture as a little-changed example of Gothic Revival church design. It is said to retain strong integrity of design, materials, and orientation to the street.","narrative":"Brick Late Gothic Revival church with a square corner tower, built in 1915 at the corner of East Fourth Street and what is now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in Winston-Salem. It was erected for a white Moravian congregation, Fries Memorial Moravian Church, which left it in 1944. Its stained glass, pointed-arch openings, and granite trim follow the style closely, and its interior keeps abundant original woodwork, plaster walls, and a roof truss system with ornamental pendules. In August 1944 the Mars Hill Baptist congregation, founded in 1937, purchased the building during a period of rapid change in the neighborhood as African American families moved in and many white residents left. The church is regarded as a representative example of that transition and of the ability of an African American congregation to acquire an imposing building during World War II. A large southern stained glass window, damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, was restored. The 1915 pebble-dash parsonage next door was included in the sale.","period_of_significance":"1915-1948","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Gothic Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Church remains active; the parsonage is stated to be vacant for about a year at the time of writing.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:40.895163-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/41/7178/47717841/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/99000061.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/99000061/0e21a72bc9-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/99000061/0e21a72bc9-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Jim Roberts","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_Hill_Baptist_Church,_Winston-Salem,_N.C.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim Roberts</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_Hill_Baptist_Church,_Winston-Salem,_N.C.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717841","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Hill_Baptist_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18705847"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/forsyth-county/mars-hill-baptist-church-99000061/"}