College Street was a major transportation artery into the city of Bowling Green and it was lined with an eclectic mix of businesses, residences, churches, and light industry. Two influential African American women, Cecelia Lillard and Ora Frances Porter, called this neighborhood home.
Cecelia Memorial Presbyterian Church>
Cecelia Memorial Presbyterian Church is named in honor of Cecelia Lillard. The church began in 1863 as a weekly prayer meeting held by Cecelia and her husband, David, in the Lillard home.
Reverend Edmond Brumfield, of Danville, Kentucky, visited the Lillards' prayer meeting in hopes of organizing a Cumberland Presbyterian Church for African Americans. When constituted in 1865, the new congregation was called the Negro Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The church outgrew the Lillard home and "Mother" Cecelia declared: "We don't have a church! We must have a church of our own!" Lillard's family donated land behind their property for a church building, and congregation members build a frame structure. The church grew, and in 1879 it paid $2,000 for the lot and church building at 716 College Street, which First Christian had built in the late-1840s.
The church's first called pastor was the energetic Reverend H.A. Gipson, who played the organ, led the
singing, and preached. A gifted evangelist, Gipson once conducted a two-week revival in Bowling Green which resulted in 250 converts. Under Gipson's leadership, and with assistance from the Presbyterian Church's Board of Missions for Freedmen, the church organized the Bowling Green Theological Seminary for the purpose of training aspiring young black preachers. The Seminary survived for only four years, but the church's commitment to education remained strong. Less than a decade later, the church started another school which became known as the Bowling Green Academy; it lasted from 1902 to 1933.
The church officially changed its name to Cecelia Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1926 to hone "Mother" Cecelia Lillard, who died in 1916 at the age of 109.
Cecelia Memorial Presbyterian Church
A church fan, 1989
Ora Frances Porter - Ora Frances Porter (1880 - 1970) owned a home at 715 College Street. She graduated from the Tuskegee Institute School of Nursing and was among the first registered nurses in Kentucky. She was an organizer of the George Washington Carver Community Center and the Interracial Commission, which campaigned for civic improvements.
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