IF YOU GO
What: Pioneering Pulpits: The First Ocoee Churches Where: The Museum Center at Five Points, 200 Inman St. E., Cleveland, Tenn. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday. Through April 4. Admission: $5 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for ages 5 and under. Information: 339-5745 or museumcenter.org Participating churches Cumberland Presbyterian Church Candies Creek Baptist Church 1st United Methodist Church Church of St. Therese Broad Street Methodist Church 1st Presbyterian Church St. Luke's Episcopal Church
In America's pioneering days, the settlers' westward advance often was accompanied in lockstep with the spread of their faith. Where they set down roots, they put up steeples.
"Pioneering Pulpits," an exhibit at the Museum Center at Five Points in Cleveland, Tenn., traces the history of churches in the area through dozens of artifacts and documents on loan from congregations in Polk and Bradley counties.
"Religion, specifically Christianity, has always been really important to the history of Bradley County," says Sam Rumschlag, the museum's curator of collections. "Many churches we received support from have roots that go back to the founding of Bradley County (in 1836)."
"This is something we thought would strike the interest of (the community) and ... help demonstrate the continuity between Bradley County's past and present," he says.
The exhibition has been in the works for more than a year. Early on, officials realized the museum's own holdings weren't sufficient to paint a comprehensive portrait of faith in the area. So they put out a call for loans to area churches, who responded with gusto, Rumschlag says. More than 60 items are on display, ranging from membership records and stained glass windows to historic photos and one woman's collection of 50 years of Sunday School perfect attendance pins.
Rumschlag says dozens of pieces were offered for exhibit, but space constraints prevented all of them from being displayed.
The collection crosses denominational lines, encompassing the entire Christian gamut, from Baptist to Methodist to Presbyterian to Catholic, including some items from the oldest churches in the area.
Many museum patrons and frequent visitors are members of churches whose history is on display. Seeing these artifacts in an educational context should give them a new perspective on their own religious community, Rumschlag says.
"It's easy to attend a church whose roots go back well over a century and not appreciate the history, people and events that formed that church and its current church body," he says. "My hope for the exhibit would be to help everyone in the Bradley County region develop a fuller, richer appreciation of the history that's influenced not only their church specifically but their denomination as a whole.
"Our documentary and 3D objects will help them develop a fuller appreciation of where their religious experience every Sunday comes from."
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.