Firefighters battle a blaze at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 6, 2006
CHICAGO - The architecture was majestic, the gospel choir was inspiring and services at the Pilgrim Baptist Church were so popular that worshippers in the 1930s and '40s had to show up an hour early to find a seat.
On Friday, the 115-year-old church, an integral part of the development of gospel music, was destroyed by a fire so intense that its flames and smoke could be seen from miles away. The fire gutted the church and collapsed its roof and steeple. The cause wasn't known.
The church was a place where the famous architects Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler experimented with the features that made them famous — such as vaulted ceilings, amazing acoustics and ornamental designs, such as the terra cotta panels with intricate foliage designs, said Ned Cramer, curator of the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
It was built as a synagogue between 1890 and 1891, but it has housed the Pilgrim...