Missouri Church History: Splice Creek Church

Splice Creek Baptist Church (and its cemetery) was a religious institution serving a small rural population in the Prairie Home Township area of Cooper County, Missouri. According to records online, the church was built in 1907. The latest date I can find any records for concerning this church is 1970, where Rev. J. L. Sullivan of rural Boonville, Missouri is listed as the pastor, and Mrs. Olive D. Hill was the church secretary. (1) The church appears to have served a chiefly African-American community, one of whose important surviving memorials is the Splice Creek Cemetery, where many of the locally rooted families are buried. The cemetery (with approximately 84 memorials in online listings) includes surnames like Coleman, Patterson, Hill, Jackson, Hardiman, Burnham, and others; these names also show up in local census, school, and family plots, suggesting that Splice Creek was integrated into the daily life of the Robinson settlement, offering not just religious services but functioning as a community anchor for schooling, social gathering, support, and identity.

While records of church service schedules, founding pastors, or meetinghouse construction for Splice Creek are nonexistent (from what I have been able to find), its cemetery and church listings in the Cooper County church directories suggest that it was recognized by the broader community and included among the “colored” or African-American churches in the area. Its congregation likely overlapped substantially with the families associated with Robinson (a local African American community, as seen in the Robinson School and Robinson Family Cemetery), so Splice Creek would have served as one of the few institutions in that community: a spiritual, social, and cultural hub. In that sense, the church’s involvement with Robinson would have been deep: overlapping family, education, burial, worship, and possibly leadership, helping maintain community cohesion in a segregated rural setting.

This humble structure whispers tales of a bygone era, its weathered wood siding and silent windows now bearing witness to nature's slow reclamation. The architecture speaks volumes of its origins: a quintessential rural "meeting house" style, functional and unadorned, characteristic of small, early 20th-century churches in the American heartland. Clad in once-white clapboard now bleached and peeling, and topped with a simple gabled roof, it was a place of gathering, nothing fancy, but enough to meet the communities needs. The foundation appears to be a simple pier and beam construction, likely wood. Inside, the building is an echo of its former self, though clues remain to its former purpose. While the building is clearly being used for storage, you can still see traces of its religious purpose. The inside is a plain, open space with no central aisle and no formal pews. A simple, elevated platform at the front of the church would have served the preacher for delivering his message. Outside the church, around the property, you'll find a couple small, dilapidated outbuildings. The wooden structure and the partial structure made of corrugated metal and wood are likely what remains of an outhouse or other small storage sheds. This reinforces the rural, pre-modern nature of the site. The presence of these separate structures suggests the church did not have indoor restrooms.

There is very, very little information on this church online. I have spent hours digging and have only been able to come up with this information you see here. If I find more, I'll update this post accordingly. If anyone reading this post has stories or information about this church, please reach out to me. Thank you!