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sonage was built and Rev. vY. G. Forsythe was the first parson to occupy the building. Then in 1895 the present church building was erected on the corner of Main and Second Streets during the pastorate of Rev. Nolan E. Harmon, father of the man who later was to become a famous Methodist Bishop and author. The building was dedicated by Bishop Charles B.Galloway in 1897. the year a disastrous ;?75»000 fire destroyed about half of the town.
It appears that the church building was not completed until near the turn of the century. J. Allen Lindsey, in "Methodism in the Mississippi Conference 1894-1919» "remarked that in 1896 Bay St.. Louis was worshipping for the second year in an incomplete building.
As he pointed out, however, the congregation was more fortunate than most along the coast. Pass Christian, Gulfport, ./aveland, and iviiss-
issippi City had no Methodist church at the time.^ Records show that
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in 1900 the new building was wired for electricity at a cost of -,>36.
As the century turned, Main Street Methodist apparently was thriving. In 1902 the church included 200 members, had two women's Societies - a Home Mission group with 14 members and a Foreign Mission society with 16 members- and included 20 officers and teachers in a Sunday School program which boasted 150 enrollees. W. W. Cammach, pastor in 1902, was awarded $375 as a salary for his services.
It is interesting to note that the church was only second in size in Hancock County at the time, ranking behind the Pearlington-Logtown church which had 281 members. By 1930, Main Street Methodist had dropped to 176 members, but Logtown by then had only 116, and this included members from Kiln, further east in the county. In 1955* the difference was 297-50 with the Bay St. Louis church representing the larger figure. This is of notable interest in that today the NASA facility is located where the now-extinct Logtown Church, once a cradle of coast Methodism, was formerly located.
For some reason, Main Street Methodist membership took a sharp drop following 1902, and this sporadic period of periodic gains and losses has been evidenced throughout much of this century. The membership was cut almost in half to 105 in 1903» was down to only 88 in 1904.
A gradual rise in membership was then seen in the next ten years, climaxed by a growth to 172 by 1914.