Centennial Baptist Church

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

From the record

“The Centennial Baptist Church is a historic church building at the corner of York and Columbia Streets in Helena, Arkansas. It is significant for its association with Elias Camp Morris (1855-1922), who was the pastor of the church from 1879 and who was a driving force in the establishment of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.”
Wikipedia article Centennial Baptist Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 60 National Register listings published here for Phillips County · listed in 1987 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. York and Columbia Sts., Helena, 72342
When was it listed? March 1987
Category. building
Township. St. Francis township
Architectural style. Gothic Revival
National Register reference number. 87000518 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

8 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Centennial Baptist Church between 1992 and 2011, burning about 69 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	BLAIR
17 September 2000	Arson/incendiarism	60 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
6 May 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	CANE
7 March 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	TURKEY
29 December 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	MIDAS
7 October 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	LAKE
31 January 1992	Recreation and ceremony	5.0 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	not named
19 January 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	WHITE HORSE

Every fire recorded in Phillips County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Centennial Baptist Church: 5 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Unk	Clay	Past Producer
Helena Revetment	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Miss River Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Phillips Cnty Hiwy Dept	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Thompson	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Phillips County

Storms near this property

23 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Helena, the town this property stands in, in 23 storm reports between 1994 and 2008: 12 thunderstorm wind, 7 hail, 3 flash flood, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
March 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$250,000	Four businesses were damaged. Four homes were also damaged. Some trees and power lines were knocked down.
June 2004	Flash Flood	West Helena	$100,000	Numerous businesses, homes and roads were flooded.
January 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$35,000	Thirty mobile homes were damaged. An outbuilding was also damaged and a fence was wrapped around a tree. A house under construction had the outer frame blown off. A parked 18-wheeler was blown over.
February 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$20,000	Straight line winds knocked down trees and caused some minor roof damage in the West Helena and Helena area. A storage shed roof was blown off and another shed was picked up over a four foot fence and thrown into the side of a house.
February 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$20,000	no account filed
February 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Helena	$15,000	A couple of buildings in downtown Helena were damaged. Several trees and power lines were also knocked down.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$5,000	A few trees were uprooted.
May 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$5,000	Several trees were knocked down.
April 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Helena	$5,000	Several trees were knocked down.
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$5,000	Several trees and power lines were knocked down.
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Helena	$5,000	Several trees and power lines were knocked down.
June 1995	Hail	Helena	$5,000	no account filed
March 2002	Flash Flood	Helena	$1,000	Some vehicles were washed into a ditch by flood waters.
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Helena	$1,000	A couple of trees and power poles were blown down.
October 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	West Helena	$1,000	A police car windshield was destroyed by several tree limbs.
June 1995	Hail	Helena	$1,000	A large tree was blown down and fell on a power line.
March 1997	Flash Flood	Helena	$1,000	no account filed
June 1995	Hail	Helena	$1,000	no account filed
December 2002	Flood	Helena	$500	Some minor street flooding occurred in Helena.
June 1995	Hail	Helena	$100	A large tree was blown down and fell on a power line.
June 1995	Hail	West Helena	$100	Several trees and power lines were knocked down.
April 1999	Hail	Helena	$100	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	West Helena	$10	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Phillips County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Centennial Baptist Church	under 500 feet	2003
St. Mary's Catholic Church	under 500 feet	2007
William Nicholas Straub House	0.1 miles	1985
Allin House	0.1 miles	1973
First Presbyterian Church	0.2 miles	2022
Helena World Building	0.2 miles	2021

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 87000518 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Phillips County	All 60 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.