2900 Gratiot Avenue
First German Methodist Episcopal Church, Church of God, Eastside Church of God
I believe that the original address for this structure was 3140 Joseph Campau Avenue after the 1921 citywide address change. Today, it’s listed as 2900 Gratiot Avenue.
The First German Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1848 with 26 charter members. Their first church was at Beaubien and Croghan (Monroe) Streets in what later became Greektown. That structure was quickly outgrown, and the congregation needed to build a new church. In 1891, ground was broken at the intersection of Gratiot, Joseph Campau, and Heidelberg Streets for such a building.
On August 21, 1892, the structure pictured here was dedicated by Bishop Ninde and “a number of visiting pastors,” according to the Detroit Free Press. The building featured pressed brick, cut stone trimmings, a slate roof, and stained glass windows. At the time, it could hold up to 600 parishioners. The basement had rooms for Sunday school with rolling partitioned walls, and there was a parsonage on the south side of the church. The church cost around $22,500 to construct, and the congregation was $7,050 in debt on the morning of the first services. According to the Detroit Free Press, around $2,300 was raised at all three services on the first day, leaving the church nearly debt-free by the end of the day. When it opened, the Reverend was Elias Roser, who had been in charge for three years.
Though the modern address is 2900 Gratiot, the structure wouldn’t have been as close to Gratiot, as the thoroughfare was widened considerably after this church was built. I believe the original address was 606 Joseph Campau Avenue, which would change to 3140 Joseph Campau after the 1921 citywide address change.
Finding information about the early years of this church has been challenging. The name is quite long, giving newspapers multiple ways to shorten it to publish it in the paper, so that might be one reason. Additionally, the congregation was mainly made up of German immigrants, and services were primarily in German, even if they started to add English services as time passed. Likely, coverage of the church would have been in German newspapers, like the Detroiter Abend-Post. Some of those archives are online but challenging to research.
In 1911, Reverend Charles Miller was in charge of the church, and by 1917, the congregation offered 9 AM Sunday School in German and English, services at 10:30 AM in German, and services at 7:30 PM in English. By this point, Charles Treuschel was pastor.
A small portion of this church was removed when Gratiot Avenue was widened; the differences between the two are visible in the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of 1921 and 1950. This likely occurred in the 1930s or early 1940s.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps show the portion of the church lost when Gratiot was widened
In the early 1930s, the structure ceased to be the First German Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church of God purchased the structure. According to their 100th anniversary congratulatory paperwork from the Detroit City Council in 2019, the Church of God was founded in 1919 by Bishop Theophlis Dickerson McGhee at Clinton and Rivard Street. In 1924, the congregation moved to Mullet and Orleans Street, and in the early 1930s, the church needed more space, so they purchased the structure pictured here. By March 9, 1935, the congregation had paid off the mortgage. According to the letter, several churches were born from this congregation, and “Bishop T. D. McGhee was very liberal and productive in helping to establish churches in Michigan (Pontiac, Flint, Ypsilanti, and Romeo).”
Samuel Randels ran the Sunday School in 1939. The church also had healthy Young Men’s Bible and HYPU (Holiness Young People’s Union) programs.
The church was often covered in articles in the Detroit Tribune and Michigan Chronicle. However, it was seldom mentioned in the Detroit Free Press, which indicates who that paper was written for.
In 1943, the church set out to raise funds, and $2,303 was raised, which was a success considering their goal was $2,000. That amounts to over $42,000 in 2024.
In May 1951, Bishop McGhee celebrated 50 years in the ministry, and his church was turning 32 years old.
On June 11, 1952, Mrs. Magnolia McGhee, wife of Bishop McGhee, died at 70. At the time, the couple lived at 3124 Joseph Campau, which may have been the church parsonage mentioned earlier. That structure has since been demolished and turned into a church parking lot. She was the National Honorary Vice President of the Ministers’ Wives’ Guild.
In August 1952, Bishop McGhee was elected National Chairman of the Church of God International at the 49th annual convention in Nashville.
When Elder Theophlis Dickerson McGhee died in 1966, William Kieth Lane, Sr., answered the call until his retirement in 2006. Elder Timothy R. Keene took over from there until his retirement in 2020. According to his daughter, Lemuel Montgomery is the current pastor of the church.
After Elder McGhee’s passing in 1966, I’ve found very little information on the church or building. At some point, the congregation changed its name from The Church of God to The Eastside Church of God. The 1970s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s are often hard to research in Detroit. This is especially true for things related to black culture, as the newspapers were preoccupied with other things. I’ve mentioned the old adage before—if it bleeds, it leads.
In 2009, Francinia White, 75, was talking to a bishop outside the church when a 1998 Ford Escort driven by a 28-year-old Westland man lost control, jumped the curb, hit a light pole, then Ms. White before crashing into a nearby building, killing Ms. White. She graduated from Eastern High School, was a retired nurse from Hutzel Hospital, and was the mother of City Council hopeful Shelley Foy. In August, Foy received 11,736 votes, or 1.72% of the vote.
In 2019, the Eastside Church of God turned 100 years old. By 2024, the congregation had spent at least 90 years in the church at the intersection of Joseph Campau, Gratiot, and Heidelberg. This church is historic, but one could argue that the congregation that has called it home for the majority of the structure’s life is more important than that. They stayed, and that’s worth commending.
