Our founding, our history
Springdale traces its beginnings more than 125 years to a tollgate on a road bisecting the farming community of Springdale in eastern Jefferson County.
Worshipers met in the Worthington School House, led by a pastor from Anchorage Presbyterian Church. But those headed to church had to pay a toll to access the road.
After several years, a church building was constructed on a donated woodlot, allowing many to avoid the toll. The congregation’s size doubled within three months of its 1882 dedication. The next year, Springdale Presbyterian Church was officially organized by the Louisville Presbytery.
Springdale has a long history of engagement. It sent young women as missionaries to China and Brazil in the late 1800s and raised money for a riverboat steamer which provided transportation in the Congo.
Chicken dinners and stained glass windows
The congregation built an education building in 1928 and paid off the debt in the Great Depression by selling chicken dinners. During the disasterous 1937 flood, the congregation offered shelter to those who had fled their flooded homes.
The small sanctuary kept evolving. Stained glass windows were added in the 1940s. A six-year construction project culminated in 1964 with a new education building and sanctuary. Members returned from Kansas in 1978 with a pipe organ that was installed in the sanctuary choir loft.
Springdale continued to reach outward, increasing giving to mission to its 20 percent goal. The congregation embraced ministries like Habitat for Humanity and built relationships with other churches in the Presbytery. A long-standing relationship with Grace (now Grace Hope) Presbyterian Church in downtown Louisville began in 1949 and was strengthened 50 years later through a partnership called Hope Springs Eternal.
The congregation continued to grow and to listen to God’s call. In 2002, the building was reshaped to unite the chapel and sanctuary with a gathering area and provide accessibility to the handicapped. A year-long visioning process helped Springdale moved the congregation toward a new understanding of missional ministry.
God continues to call Springdale from a rich and thriving past into ministry in the 21st century.
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