First Methodist’s original electric sign hovers over street cars at Fifth Street and Capitol Avenue, 1918 (First United Methodist Church)
Springfield’s First Methodist Church broke with local tradition in 1911, when it installed an electric sign over the church door.
The Illinois State Register took note in a Dec. 19, 1911, article:
“Church Has An Electric Sign,” the headline read. “First M.E. Church Keeps Up With the Times.”
Springfield churches which frown upon the many new things which metropolitan churches are adopting daily, such as electric signs and newspaper advertising, will be forced to extend themselves or fall behind, as one of the largest churches in the business district has had a huge electric sign placed over the door at the street corner.
The First M. E. church, located at the corner of Fifth Street and Capitol Avenue, is the one, and yesterday afternoon, a force of workmen from the W. J. Horn System hung a large sign over the southwest door.
(The initials “M.E.” came from the church’s formal name at the time, First Methodist Episcopal Church. The church later was renamed First United Methodist Church. It moved from Fifth and Capitol to 2941 S. Koke Mill Road in the 2000s.)
The electrified sign, a first for Springfield churches, was simple in design. It was horizontal, white letters on a dark background, saying simply “First M.E. Church.”
“The sign was placed in such a position that it may be seen from several directions and the traveling public and those who are unfamiliar with the location of the church will not have any trouble finding it,” the Register story said.
The next mention of the sign was in an Illinois State Journal story on March 10, 1918, that reported on a 55-mile-per-hour wind that blew down signs, poles and chimneys in Springfield. The storm, which lasted for hours, “actually blew people off their feet and rolled them in a humiliating style down the street,” the Journal said.
“The electric sign at First Methodist church was whisked back and forth so ferociously that the bottom fell out of it with the lights,” the story said.
Church board records over the years indicate small payments to the sign company, probably for maintenance or replacing bulbs. The sign apparently started showing its age a decade after it was installed. It was “remodeled” in 1921, and in 1922 church board minutes indicated concern that the “sign be kept in working order.”
First Methodist’s second sign, about 1926 (First UMC)
In 1925 the church board was told it would cost $100 to repair the sign and $500 for a new one. The board apparently chose to erect a new sign, because board members were informed in 1926 that the new sign was in operation. This was a vertical sign, saying “First Methodist Church” in white letters on a dark background. Church records, however, contain no line item for the expenditure.
Several photographs over the next few years include the second sign. The earliest seems to be one that also shows the sign for the Princess Theatre across the street; that photo would have been taken before the Lincoln Theatre replaced the Princess in 1928.
In 1970 the church trustees considered the sign a safety liability and voted to have it removed and disposed of by the Ace Sign Company, the successor of the W. J. Horn System.
Ace Sign Company has no record of the disposition of the sign.
Contributor: Steve Beilstein. Beilstein is historian of First United Methodist Church.
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