HISTORY OF COMMUNITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH - 1910 TO 1980
Growth
In 1949 a new era
in the life of Community
United Methodist Church began with the appointment of Chester A.
Imhausen as pastor of the Eastwood Methodist congregation--an era that
would witness the start of building a new, larger, and more beautiful
physical plant for a swiftly-growing organization of enthusiastic,
dedicated, giving Christians. Pastor Imhausen, a native of Bridgeport,
Indiana, served four years in the South Pacific during World War II.
After return to civilian life, he attended Butler University for two
years and graduated from Indiana Central College with an A.B. degree
two years later in 1949.
He came to Dayton in the summer of 1949 to attend United Theological
Seminary and was assigned by the Ohio Conference to the Eastwood-Wright
View charge.One of his first actions after taking up the new charge was to appoint a committee to select a site for a new church in the East Dayton area and to recommend the Official Board purchase the land preparatory to entering into a building program and a financial campaign. Mr. Morris Gustin, then lay leader of Eastwood, was elected chairman of the committee for site selection. Prior to the actual selection process, Mr. Gustin supervised the conduct of a detailed survey of the East Dayton area to determine the membership potential, expected population trends, new residential housing construction --in the process of completion or planned --as well as the spiritual needs of the people to be served
After more study and deliberation, the present site of Community United Methodist Church, at the corner of Burkhardt (then Kemp) and Meyer Avenue. was recommended to the Official Board. Earlier efforts to obtain space from the city of Dayton for building at the corner of Burkhardt and Smithville had not been seriously pressed. A desirable place at Burkhardt and Shedbourne Avenue now the Burkhardt Branch Library, was considered, but the Burkhardt-Meyer location was favored. William Alexander Simms, owner of the property at the Burkhardt and Meyer location, agreed to the sale of approximately one and one-half acres at a price of $2,000 per acre with the total cost to be determined after a land survey could be made. According to the area survey conducted by the site selection committee, there were at that time 4,200 homes with a population of 15,000 in the immediate vicinity of the site
There was, furthermore, every good expectation of continued residential building in the area. Seven and one-half percent of the population was Methodist and an additional thirty-five percent of those surveyed indicated that they would be interested in a Methodist church if one were built in the community. From the viewpoint of sustaining a large Church School, District Superintendent Robert Kennedy, in a letter to Ohio Bishop Hazen G. Werner on February 19,1954, estimated that there were 2.000 people within walking distance of the proposed site. He further stated that there was only one Protestant church within two miles of the proposed location, but that other denominations were contemplating building within the area. Clearly, it was an ideal location---there was a need by many and space for growth was available.