Former professional baseball player-turned urban evangelist. Follow this daily blog that chronicles the life and ministry of revivalist preacher William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (1862-1935)
When Billy Sunday came to New Castle, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1910, the city quickly discovered that it was not ready for what was about to happen.
The campaign opened on September 18, 1910, and from the very first service it was clear that the tabernacle—built to hold 7,500 people—was not nearly large enough. According to the New Castle Herald (Sept. 19, 1910), crowds overflowed the structure on opening day, spilling into the streets and surrounding grounds. What had been intended as a major civic event immediately became something larger: a public phenomenon.
For six weeks, New Castle lived inside a revival. Night after night, thousands gathered to hear Sunday preach in his unmistakable style—direct, forceful, unsparing, and deeply earnest. Newspapers across western Pennsylvania followed the meetings closely, treating the campaign as front-page news rather than mere church business.
By the time the final service concluded on October 30, the numbers were staggering.
In total, $12,500 was collected during the campaign, as reported by the Warren Times Mirror on November 3, 1910. But far more striking were the spiritual results reported by local churches: 6,383 recorded conversions, including 1,050 decisions on the final evening alone.
The New Castle Herald captured the meaning of those numbers in a powerful editorial reflection on October 31:
“Just think of 6,383 souls being added to the churches of this city and county. This means one out of every six persons residing in this city. It means a very much larger proportion in reality, for these 6,383 are all of age to think and to accept for themselves the doctrines of Christianity. In the light of this, the money given yesterday to the evangelist seems a trivial sum, when compared with the good he has done.”
That statement goes to the heart of why New Castle mattered in Sunday’s career. This was not simply a revival that filled a building or generated headlines. It reshaped congregations across an entire region. Local churches suddenly found themselves filled with new members, new energy, and new responsibility for discipleship.
The New Castle campaign also illustrates why Billy Sunday became such a defining figure in early twentieth-century America. In an era before radio, television, or social media, he could command massive crowds purely through reputation, word of mouth, and the sheer force of his preaching. Cities did not merely host Sunday; they were changed by him.
More than a century later, the New Castle revival stands as one of Sunday’s most dramatic successes. For six weeks in 1910, a steel-town community experienced a spiritual earthquake—one that newspapers, pastors, and ordinary citizens remembered long after the tabernacle was torn down.
For historians of revival, New Castle offers a vivid case study in how Sunday’s campaigns worked: huge crowds, intense emotion, measurable results, and lasting impact on local churches.
For the people of New Castle, it was simply the season when their city met Billy Sunday—and was never quite the same again.
“New York City gave me $120,485, Mr. Sunday said, and I turned over every cent for the work that I had said I would. I went to Chicago, and the city gave me $65,000 and I gave the sum to the Pacific Garden mission. I give away a tenth of my income. And that is all right. I do not advertise all the things I do with my money. I do not tell all the world the things that I pay off. You follow me around, some of you, and I will make you dizzy with the money I give away. But I don’t have to tell anyone. It is written down above so that is all that matters.” As reported by The Richmond Item. Fri, May 26, 1922 ·
Billy’s New York Tribune editorial The letter was typed on the back of Richmond January 1919 letterhead
New York Tribune New York City N.Y.
For ten weeks in New York, I went the limit of my strength preaching Christ and Him crucified, explaining as plainly as I could the plan of Salvation as revealed in the Bible. Hundreds of thousands flocked to the old Tabernacle at One Hundred and sixty-eighth street and Broadway (the dearest spot in little old New York to me) and tens of thousands publicly expressed their faith in His atoning blood, proving beyond question of a doubt that people are willing and eager to go hear the Bible explained but will not go to hear it explained away.
There is no Christianity without the deity of Christ, there is no Salvation without faith in the atonement of Christ on Calvary. The doctrine that God is the father of us all and that “self-sacrifice is the key to Heaven” is religious bunk. The fountain head of this horrible war that has drenched the world with blood you will find was in that infamous hellish theology made in Germany. It is now showing its fangs in Russia.
The future existence of our government and its institutions depend in a large measure upon the class of people who will soon be called upon to assist in solving the grave problems that lie just ahead of us. It has been well said that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Therefore, it can rise no higher than the plane of its citizenship. Christianity is the only weapon with which we may successfully contend against extreme Socialism, Bolshevism, I.W. Wism and Anarchy.
When I pronounced the benediction the last night in New York my responsibility for the work there ended. I’ve never yet been satisfied with the results of any campaign I have ever conducted. No business house does as much business as it would like to do. No newspaper ever has as large a circulation as the owner would like to have. No doctor saves as many lives as he would like to save. I have never seen as many people accept Christ as I would like to see but I do my utmost in every campaign.
In a city where I held a campaign there was a church four squares from the Tabernacle. The pastor did not openly oppose the meeting, but he did not encourage his people to help. He had no ushers from his church in the aisles, no singers in the choir, no personal workers in the building, nobody on the committees. Neither he nor his church made any special investment of time energy or money. A few weeks after the meeting closed, he published a statement that though his church was scarcely more than a stone’s throw from the Tabernacle there were no results, and the campaign was a failure.
In the same city another pastor, whose church was seven miles away, entered actively into the campaign. His men were ushers, his singers were in the choir, his workers zealous and untiring in their efforts to win others. He and his people invested largely in time, strength and money and within two weeks after the campaign closed nearly one hundred persons united with his church on profession of faith. And this pastor published a statement that the campaign was a great success. To the one object failure – to the other, a triumphant success. One used a hammer, the other a saw, draw your own conclusions.
As long as God gives me strength I will keep pounding away at the fortifications of sin and pointing men to Jesus Christ as the only way of Salvation, no matter who knocks.
Don’t worry about old John Barleycorn. He has been tried, convicted, sentenced by forty states and today he sits strapped in the chair waiting for the executioner to pull the lever. His time is about up. I’ve given him a few uppercuts myself during the past twenty-five years and you can write it down in your blue book that I’m getting ready to preach his funeral sermon and close with the doxology.
Billy Sunday’s Toledo Campaign (April 9 – May 21, 1911)
Billy Sunday’s 1911 revival in Toledo, Ohio, was one of the most anticipated evangelistic events the city had ever seen. Running for six intense weeks—from April 9 to May 21—the campaign opened with extraordinary momentum. On opening Sunday alone, more than 30,000 people attended three services, immediately signaling the citywide interest and spiritual hunger surrounding Sunday’s arrival.
The revival was held in a massive temporary tabernacle measuring 160 by 220 feet, with seating for 7,000 people, plus an additional 1,000 seats in the choir loft. Night after night, the structure filled with working men and women, families, and curious onlookers drawn by Sunday’s reputation for plainspoken preaching, moral urgency, and energetic delivery.
Organizers initially hoped for 20,000 conversions, a figure reflecting Toledo’s size and the scale of the meetings. While that expectation proved optimistic, the final results were still remarkable: 7,323 people publicly professed conversion, surpassing Sunday’s previous record at New Castle. The response confirmed Toledo as one of the strongest campaigns of his early national prominence.
Financial support from the city was equally notable. Total offerings reached $14,423.58, breaking Sunday’s earlier giving record of $10,000 at New Castle. Newspapers emphasized that these contributions came largely from people of ordinary means, underscoring the grassroots character of Sunday’s appeal and the broad civic buy-in to the revival.
By the time the campaign concluded in late May, Toledo had experienced weeks of sustained attention on spiritual renewal, personal reform, and public morality. Though it fell short of early conversion projections, the Toledo campaign stood as a record-setting and influential moment in Billy Sunday’s rise as America’s most prominent evangelist of the Progressive Era.
Billy used the newly constructed Kosair Auditorium for his Louisville revival meetings (April 22 – June 2).
” . . . during the six weeks of the revival to be held at the Kosair Auditorium, on Broadway between Floyd and Brook streets.” Source – newspaper
Now location of the 1922-23 Kosair Auditorium, adjacent to the Kosair Temple (now the Norton Research Institute).
The current Norton Research Institute was the original Kosair Temple, NOT the Auditorium. 224 E. Broadway (between Brook and Jackson Streets)
The Auditorium (Broadway between Floyd and Brook) pre-dated the Temple and likely served as a temporary venue while the Shrine built its new home a few blocks east (between Brook and Jackson).
When revival calls crowds to the aisle, a critical question follows: “Will that decision endure?” In 1918, after Billy Sunday’s campaigns, journalists followed up with converts and organizers to ask whether the spiritual fervor survived time. The answers—preserved in this article—offer rare insight into how revival might seed long-term change. Read on to see what those trail hitters said, and what it teaches us about lasting faith.
Effect of Sunday Revivals in Other Cities Has Been Permanent.
BY ARTHUR JOYCE.
Does ‘trail hitting’ at Billy Sunday campaign meetings show any permanent results? Are those persons who walk the sawdust aisles over at the Tabernacle interested only in formally shaking the hand of the evangelist – or is there something definite behind it all?
Thousands who have seen approximately 6,000 persons ‘hit the trail’ at the Tabernacle in this city are asking these questions. And about the only way in which they can be answered with any degree of accuracy is to look over the field where the evangelist has campaigned and see what’s the situation a year or two following the campaigns.
I recently had a talk with two influential representatives of cities in which Billy has campaigned and I put the questions to each of them. One is Gen. C. Edward Murray, quartermaster general of New Jersey, the other is Lucius L. Jeddy, head of the Merchants National Bank, of Syracuse, N.Y. Both were Billy Sunday ‘trail hitters’ – Gen. Murray in Trenton, N.J., and Mr. Eddy in Syracuse.
Big Sunday Club.
Gen. Murray is president of the Billy Sunday Club, of Trenton, an organization of ‘trail hitters’ formed after the evangelist’s Trenton campaign. That club now has a big membership and every member in it is personally interested in leading others to Christ.
‘The campaign in Trenton,’ said Gen. Murray, ‘awakened a remarkable interest in Christian work, especially among the men and women who ‘hit the trail.’ Churches have increased their membership to a remarkable extent; booze joints that keeled over; Sunday schools are crowded and everywhere there is shown a wonderful interest in things religious. I know many noted men who have passed up the cigars and joined the church and I know of one politician who formerly represented the booze interests, who has been converted and is now an active election on an anti-booze ticket.
‘On the whole, I should say that the Sunday campaign in Trenton has done more to evangelize the city than any other one happening in recent years. And I’m satisfied that the men who ‘hit the trail’ are still going right with the Lord and are doing their best to lead the aisles for Christ.’
Mr. Eddy told of the workings of the Billy Sunday Club in Syracuse. Every member of the organization was a ‘trail hitter’ and in the last two years, he said, they have led more than 20,000 men to Christian lives.
‘The ‘trail hitters’ not only themselves ‘stuck to their declarations to stand on God’s side,’ said Mr. Eddy, ‘but they’ve inaugurated an active campaign to bring others into the fold. And if that doesn’t show the permanency of ‘trail hitting’ I’ve lost my guess.’
Senator Vardaman, of Mississippi, made the statement that if the evangelist shall win only one person to Christ in his Washington campaign, ‘we will have been well repaid for our efforts in the revival cause here.’
In Philadelphia – three years after the Sunday campaign – there is a ‘trail-hitting’ organization in virtually every church where the evangelist assisted in the revival. There are probably 7,000 members enrolled in these organizations, and they’re campaigning every day to bring others to the church.
In Scranton, Pa., one church added 2,000 members to its rolls within six months after the Sunday campaign. Another Scranton church increased its enrollment by 1,000 in a year following the campaign. The same is true of the churches in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and in Carbondale, Pa., churches.
In Wichita, Kan., three men of national reputation have been converted who call ‘gospel teams.’ These ‘teams’ go about the country and work in the Middle West to preach the gospel and tell of the wonderful work Billy Sunday did in their campaigns. Out of these teams has been formed a National Federation of Gospel Teams’ which are made up of leading men throughout the country – all of whom are either ‘trail hitters’ at Sunday meetings or are in the church as a result of the work of ‘trail-hitters’ who have taken up personal work. These teams have a record of 11,000 conversions to their credit.
Don’t All Stay.
Detroit has a ‘trail-hitters’ club’ of nearly 1,000 members; Los Angeles has one with about 500 men on its rolls; Atlanta has just finished organization of a Billy Sunday Club with several hundred members. And in virtually every city and town where the evangelist has campaigned there are similar organizations continuing the work Billy began. Nearly every ‘trail hitter’ in these places has associated himself with these clubs.
Of course, every person who ‘hits the trail’ isn’t a sticker. But records made by Sunday party experience year after Billy’s campaigns in leading cities show that approximately 85 per cent of those who ‘walk the aisles’ represent permanent converts.
The object of the ‘trail hitting’ is not only to bring to the ‘front’ in a public confession of faith those who have been more before taken any stand in the matter. Billy’s ‘invitations’ are intended to induce the church members to ‘reconsecrate’ themselves and ask to be more earnest Christian life from those who have already ‘accepted’ Christianity.
Legacy & What It Means This article offers more than historical curiosity: it reveals Sunday’s conviction that conversion must stick. His method didn’t end with a call to the front — it extended into communities, clubs, and networks of believers committed to nurturing change.
Application for Today In contemporary ministries, it’s easy to emphasize decisions without long-term follow-through. What lessons does Sunday’s model offer us? Perhaps this: revival without discipleship is incomplete.
Reflection & Invitation If “trail hitters” in 1918 were expected to keep walking, not wander off, who in your context needs that same encouragement today? How will the faith you ignite be sustained, multiplied, and anchored in life?
I believe profoundly in Mr. Sunday, in the purity of his motive, in the truth of his purpose, the sincerity of his aim, and the transparency of his ambition. He undoubtedly has a divine commission to preach the gospel and the people hear him gladly. Mr. Sunday has a remarkable personality. It is one of his big assets. He is in possession of that undefinable something, the influence of which men feel but cannot explain.
I believe that in Chicago Mr. Sunday’s personality will count for more than in other cities because it has a fuller chance to come to the fore, coming back, as he does, to his home city, the city of so many pleasant associations and sacred memories.
Source – the author of this article is probably the wife to Evangelist M.B. Williams.
Grace Sax joined the Sunday team in February 191. She immediately assumed the leader of the cottage prayer meetings, as well as Bible teaching and training local churches to handle the fruit of the Sunday revivals.
The Liverpool Evening Review. Wed. Sept 18, 1912:1. Grace is in the center.
This article in a 1911 newspaper gives a glimpse of the importance of prayer to Grace.
Miss Saxe then held up little blank book which is called “Answered Prayer.”
She calls it, “A Record of the Footsteps of a Prayer Hearing and Prayer Answering God.” It is divided into four blank columns headed. First, date of asking; second, the request; third, the special promise pleaded; fourth, date when answered.
In this record she puts only the prayers which to man’s eyes it seem impossible to have answered. All of her prayers, she says, have not been answered thus far—many of them have however been answered fully.
“There are conditions to fulfill if prayers are to be answered.” These seven conditions she has in the back of her “Answered Prayer”
1. Personal condition, Psalm 66:18,
2. Forgiving Spirit, Mark 11:25,
3. Spiritual Motive, James 4:3.
4. Asking, Matthew 7:7,
5. Asking in Faith, Mark 11:24,
6. Asking according to God’s will (not to interfere with His plans) 1 John 5:14,
7. Asking in Jesus name, John 16:23. “Pray so that if it were written we could ask Jesus to sign it.”
In our prayers Miss Saxe suggests that the following should be the form of approach to God: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.
Taking the first letters of these words in order, we spell the word Acts. In Genesis 32:9-12 we find that order observed in Jacob’s prayer. In conclusion Miss Saxe suggested the reading of Andrew Murray’s ‘With Christ in the School of Prayer.’—Mrs. A. R. Williams.
Source – the author of this article is probably the wife to Evangelist M.B. Williams.
The following story was printed in a paper on March 3rd, 1915:
“One of the special features of the meeting yesterday afternoon came when Miss Grace Saxe, of Sunday’s party, rushed from the platform and threw her arms around the shoulders of a woman trail hitter. Miss Saxe later explained that the woman was a relative, living in this city, and that she has been praying for her to come to the front since the opening of the campaign.”
As published in the The Akron Beacon Journal. Sat, Jun 18, 1910 ·Page 3
Attorney W. S. Anderson of Youngstown, who defended Bert Petty, is a staunch supporter of “Billy” Sunday, the celebrated evangelist. He was one of Sunday’s many converts in Youngstown. Sunday spent six weeks in Youngstown this spring and Mr. Anderson says that the effect upon Youngstown was great and it has been lasting also.
“When I first went to hear him I was disgusted,” he said, “but I went several times more just out of curiosity and I grew to be a great admirer of his work. The first two weeks he spent in Youngstown he used a great deal of slang. This drew the crowds and when he had them coming he got down to work and his work was wonderful.”
Mr. Anderson says that all classes of people have been effected by Sunday’s work. “The lawyers are a pretty hard class of men to reach with religious services but Sunday did it. One night in his prayer he said, ‘Help the lawyers because we know they are a tough bunch.’ They were too, but many became followers of the evangelist.
“The work of Sunday can not be judged only by the number who came forward. It is the influence on all the people and their relations with one another.”
Mr. Anderson says Akron should get Billy Sunday here. “It will do the town a lot of good,” he said.
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) 