History of South Park United Methodist Church

The former church at the corner of Brown and Stonemill was built in 1926, but its congregation dates back even further.

Our previous article on the history of 1906 Brown Street, we wrote that that structure was originally a church known as Patterson Memorial Presbyterian, erected in the same year as its street address.

In the 1920s, the congregation had grown to about 500 members and needed additional space, and it would look just a couple blocks up the road for its new home.

The new church at 140 Stonemill Road cost $125,000 and at the time was called “one of the most thoroughly equipped church structures in the Miami Valley”:

The edifice is built of green and tan brick interspersed with red, and trimmed in Berea sandstone. A beautiful pillared entrance faces Brown st. and a tower of an artistic and churchly design graces the north-center section … There are 24 individual classrooms, equipped to care for 800 Sunday school pupils … The auditorium will accommodate 700 persons. It has an elevated floor and two balconies at the rear. A dining room seating 800 and fully equipped with steam tables for cafeteria service.

So excited were the Presbyterian and greater communities for the construction of the new church that 2,000 people showed up for the laying of the cornerstone on June 21, 1925. It opened in early 1926.

The church was known as Patterson Memorial only until 1932, when it merged with Raper Methodist Episcopal, a church that was founded in 1842 as Finley Chapel at the corner of Fifth and Jackson in the Oregon District. (Goodwill now occupies the site.)

In the 1950s, South Park United Methodist added a new educational wing which also housed a preschool and food pantry.

In 1968 it became a United Methodist church and in 1995 it underwent another merger, this time with Oak Street UMC which had been located at 433 Oak Street in an 1886 building. (That church was originally the United Brethren Ministerial Association and its 80 members began meeting in a shoe store near Wayne Ave.)

An art gallery known as the Epiphany Gallery was established in a former walkway on the second floor in 2001.

In 2016, Rev. Tom Miller felt that the age and sheer size of the 48,000 square foot church were making things difficult for the ministry, and the building was sold to Dublin-based New Village Communities for redevelopment.

But the company’s vision for converting the church into housing was opposed by area residents as well as the University of Dayton, both for the increased density it would bring and also for encouraging students to live west of Brown Street. The Rubicon Mill neighborhood association said that it was “100 percent against this project invading the neighborhood” and that they intend to “maintain the community integrity.”

Due to this opposition, no project has moved forward. In 2018, a new company, Redhawk Down LLC, purchased the church, leading to a bizarre situation where the developer claimed to have a new plan and would begin construction soon, but no one at the City of Dayton seemed to have met with him.

New Village Communities tried again in 2019 a few blocks north with a 109-apartment development across the street from the South Park neighborhood on the site of a former school. This too was opposed by many and the site remains a vacant lot.

And finally, for any readers who still haven’t gotten their fill of church mergers, after South Park United Methodist sold its building it became Neighborhood Church at 1048 Patterson Road. It then combined with Oakwood United Methodist which itself had grown out of Oak Street UMC, the church that originally merged with South Park decades earlier.

Additional Sources

“New Church Nearing Completion,” Dayton Daily News, 9/27/1925.
“Developer buys church near UD,” Dayton Business Journal, 12/2/2016.