Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
From the record
“New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, also known as New Hope Church, is a historic Primitive Baptist church located near Richmond, Ray County, Missouri. The church was established c. 1820 as North Bluffton and the building was constructed in 1897.”
Wikipedia article New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 6 National Register listings published here for Ray County · listed in 1980 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.80002393- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Richmond township. The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
On June 1, A. D. 1878, the city of Richmond was visited by one of the most violent and destructive cyclones that ever passed over this section of the country. Nearly every thing in its pathway was utterly demolished. Huge trees were torn up by the roots, buildings swept away, and human and animal life destroyed.
The chapter on Richmond Township in History of Ray County, Mo., published 1881 names Richmond. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
On the 20th and 21st of August following, the election was duly held, and resulted in one hundred and eight votes being cast for the proposition and fifty-five against it; and in due course of time, as already fully stated, the county seat was removed, and public buildings erected, etc. Hence, Richmond owes its existence to the fact of the land on which the original town is located having been selected first by commisioners, and then by a majority of the qualified voters of the county as a site for the permanent seat of justice of the county of Ray.
Richmond was surveyed and laid out into blocks, lots, streets and alleys by Thomas N. Aubry, Esq., under the direction of William S. Miller, commissioner of the seat of justice, between the 24th of September and the 15th of October, A. D. 1827.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 4 fires within 5 miles of New Hope Primitive Baptist Church
in 2020, burning about 19 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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
3
Smoking
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
27 workings within 5 miles of New Hope Primitive Baptist Church: 24 past producers, 3 producers.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Richmond, the town this property stands in, in 62 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 29 thunderstorm wind, 22 hail, 7 flash flood, 2 lightning.
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.
A local newspaper reported downed trees and power lines. Half of the bleacher seats at the high school football field were ripped out of place and left twisted on the field. A 75-foot-hole was also torn in the ceiling of a Wal-Mart store.
Lightning struck a power line which carries a surge of electricity into a a Richmond home during a thunderstorm. The electrical surge sparked a fire which resulted in about 10,000 dollars in damage to the home. No one was injured in the fire.
A swath of wind around 80 to 90 mph affected areas in and around Richmond. A center point irrigation system was toppled over southwest of the city. Inside Richmond several trees were snapped as well as power poles. Several outbuildings were destroyed and several residences in the city sustained slightly more than cosmetic damage. The narrow and localized swath was consistent with a possible mesovortex, but the debris strewn generally unidirectional down stream from the source of the damage indicated straight line winds.
Lightning during a thunderstorm knocked out the power to the City of Richmond's wells. The Mayor of Richmond was forced to temporarily order the closing of laundromats and car washes until the 60-horsepower motor and water pressure were restored.
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
4 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.
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.