March 28, 2011

Wicked Kingston

Funds were being collected to build this Kingston church in 1888, by the Methodist Episcopal Mission Society. Photo courtesy Matti Nunn Harrison

Kingston's church is long gone, as are so many other buildings thrown up in a hurry in the 1880s boom town. The church, made of stone, would seem to have some permanency. Yet it did not stand the near-abandonment of Kingston after the Panic of 1893.

An 1888 publication of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church titled, The Gospel in All Lands, has some interesting things to say about Kingston. "If I could take the reader along our way on the main street to a school-house for evening service, he would see the typical mining town in all of its wickedness." The writer remarks on the behaviors of people he sees in Kingston, and how the church building is being funded.

Something else is worth noting, the reported population size of Kingston on page 61. It's far below the oft-reported 7,000 souls alleged to have lived there.  You'll have to see it for yourself. -- Craig Springer

1 comment:

  1. We want a "then and now" photo like you did for the baseball field. (Of the church site, I mean, not of the wickedness.)

    ReplyDelete