I am unable to locate any information on the church. Based on burials listed on Find-a-Grave, the congregation has been around since the 1920s. The church is located near the entrance to Providence Canyon.
While I’ve seen this church identified as an AME church, I believe it to be a Baptist Church. Based on obituaries, it was called this until as late as 2017. I can only locate obituaries that refer to this building as Mill Bethel Church or Mill Bethel Baptist Church. According to an announcement in The Ledger and Enquirer in 1980, the church was celebrating it’s 108th anniversary. While I date the building to the early 1900s, the congregation seems to have been founded in 1872.
According to the Stewart County website, this church was built in 1895. This means that it was one of the few buildings that survived the 1913 tornado that flattened most of Omaha. The church was built with a much taller tower, but it was shortened because it was hard to care for it. It once was crowned with a copper spire.
In 2000, the church was deeded to the last members of the church, Blanche and Floyd Morrison. Based on other photos I have seen online, this church was in disrepair. By the yard, the satellite dish, and the new fence, I believe this building is back in use. Whether it is a home, community center, or something else, it’s great to see such a beautiful structure have a second life.
The town of Omaha is only a few blocks by a few blocks, but this church is located in the center of town. The congregation began in the late 1800s. The first church building was demolished by a tornado in 1913. It was rebuilt in the following year.
This is still an active congregation with church meetings every third Sunday.
This Neoclassical Revival, known as the Walter Fitzgerald house, was built in 1914 after a 1913 tornado leveled most of the the town of Omaha. The town of Omaha was originally named Fitzgerald after being named after the Fitzgerald family, one of the founding families. At the time, they didn’t know there was another Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County, so they had to rename their town. Town legend is that town leaders asked a visitor what to name it, and the visitor said to name it after Omaha, Nebraska.
