Good Hope Baptist Church in Rural Uchee

This photo shoot is a followup to the post on abandoned places like Uchee Methodist Church, which was almost across the street from this church. This is an ongoing photo interest of mine of abandoned places around the southeast and photographing rural decay areas to preserve some little bit of history in my area.

Good Hope Baptist Church Uchee

Photographing these places at least locks them into a time and place before they are completely lost to time. It is interesting how much these places change over the years. Apparently photographer David Bulit had been to this church and photographed Good Hope Baptist Church as well, but it had clearly changed since I did my photo shoot. His images show the inside has been almost completely emptied, where at the time I was there it still had all its original pews and various other debris around. It looks like his post went up in July 2023 but I actually took these images a few years ago, I just never got around to doing the edit on the shoot until now.

About Good Hope Baptist

This church is on the historical register, so most of the information about the church can be found over there. The sign says this is one of the oldest white settlements in the Chattahoochee Valley before and after the removal of the Indians; land deeds between whites date back to 1832, the year of Russell County's founding. The name of the town comes from the Indian name of a creek which originates nearby. In its early years it was a cultural, political and religious center. Three academies were established in the area: Good Hope, Spring Grove and Andrew’s Chapel. Russell County’s first member of the Alabama House of Representative, Nimrod Washington Long, was among the pioneers here.

The oldest continually active church in Russell County is located on this lot. Good Hope Church was constituted July 29, 1837. The present building, as was that of the Methodist church, was constructed in 1857. They are the oldest continually used church structures in Russell County. The builder was L.S. Johnson.

Photographs Selected

These images were taken a few years ago, so the inside has changed since then. Below is representative of the date when these images were taken.

Featured Image