Torches started church fire of Chicago Historical Church
Workers were putting the finishing touches on a new roof for the Pilgrim Baptist Church as part of a much-anticipated renovation of the landmark building when torches they were using sparked a fire that escalated into a massive blaze, investigators determined Monday.
The fire Friday destroyed the 115-year-old church-- considered the birthplace of gospel music-- leaving it a charred shell that church officials have vowed to rebuild.
Firefighters determined that the torches caused the fire after interviewing witnesses and the roofers and reviewing video tape and other evidence, fire department spokesman Larry Langford said.
Police do not believe criminal action contributed to the start of the fire, Langford said.
The church, designed in the late 1800s by the famous architectural firm headed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, had been in the midst of a renovation project before Friday's fire. An elevator was being installed, and the roofers had been adding copper gutters on Friday, said Robert Vaughn, the church's chairman of the trustees.
A donation fund was set up at the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, and churches across the city held special collections during Sunday services to help rebuild the church, Vaughn said.
Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson said Pilgrim, which originally was built as synagogue where Adler's father was the head rabbi, had "many layers of history," much of which was lost forever in the blaze.
"It was one of the most influential black congregations of Chicago in the 1920s and beyond," he said. "It was the creative incubator for modern gospel music. ... There are so many layers to this tragedy it's hard to even describe them or put in any kind of order of importance."
Many of the lost artifacts belonged to Thomas A. Dorsey, who is considered the father of gospel music. He was Pilgrim's music director from 1932 until the late 1970s, and his all-time greatest hit, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," was popularized by the late Mahalia Jackson and became the favorite song of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Sheet music crafted by Dorsey and colorful robes he wore were stored in the church's choir room. Also destroyed were photographs; cassette tapes and videotapes documenting church celebrations; large religious murals; and a gallery of portraits that included past ministers and Dorsey.
Illinois Institute of Technology associate professor Glenn Broadhead, whose students had been working on several projects with the Pilgrim congregation, said one of the greatest losses was a meticulous record-keeping book that had tracked since the 1920s the church's growth and decline in membership.
Pilgrim had 10,000 members at the height of its popularity in the 1940s. The congregation numbered a few hundred at the time of the fire, church officials said.
With the church building gone and many artifacts lost forever, Broadhead has requested an emergency IIT course this spring to get students to help interview longtime Pilgrim members.
"Everyone is feeling the pain, and this may be the time to see what we can do to collect what we have left," he said.
But for one of Pilgrim's past ministers, the increased attention on the church is bittersweet.
During the Rev. Hycel B. Taylor's four years at Pilgrim beginning in 2001, he tried to raise money to renovate the ailing church, which was designated a Chicago landmark in 1981.
One of his goals was to create a museum honoring the church and Dorsey. But before he could raise the funds and move the artifacts to a church community center across the street, he left.
Now, the would-be museum's collection is gone.
"The great tragedy is, in my fourth year there, I tried to raise the money to preserve the church," Taylor said. "And a fire destroys it, and now everyone wants to donate."
Taylor hopes other churches take heed and begin preserving their past before it's too late.
"Let us not wait until they burn to the ground in this dramatic way," he said. "Otherwise our history will be left to the memory."
