Tag: Billy Sunday Tabernacle

Billy Sunday in Spokane (1908–1909): When the Revival Hit the Inland Empire

When Billy Sunday arrived in Spokane on Christmas Day, 1908, expectations were already high—and confusion lingered. Earlier reports had announced a December 20 opening. That date came and went. But on December 25, the Sunday party finally arrived, and Spokane discovered that the delay mattered little. The revival that followed would become one of the most significant religious events in the city’s early twentieth-century history.

Opening night attendance was estimated at 8,000 people, filling the newly constructed tabernacle on Christmas Day. The Spokesman-Review reported the crowd the following morning, setting the tone for what would unfold over the next six weeks .

A City Drawn In

The Spokane campaign officially ran from December 25, 1908, to February 10, 1909. In that span, Sunday recorded 5,666 converts, with the single largest night producing 446 responses. Offerings totaled $15,000 to cover campaign expenses, and Sunday’s personal purse amounted to $10,000—figures that place Spokane among his more successful revivals of the era .

The tabernacle itself had been erected in early December, even before Sunday arrived, and disassembly began almost immediately after the meetings concluded. It was a temporary structure for what proved to be a lasting civic event.

Attendance figures tell only part of the story. According to the Daily Herald, the revival spilled far beyond the tabernacle walls. Hundreds of prayer meetings and semi-public gatherings sprang up across the city. Homes were opened for religious meetings. Crowds swelled so large at times that police were required to control access to the tabernacle. The paper described the total attendance as “hundreds of thousands,” calling some of the gatherings among the largest in Spokane’s history .

Methods, Manhood, and Controversy

Sunday’s style continued to provoke strong reactions—both admiration and criticism. Rev. T. H. Fertig, a Spokane minister, offered one of the most telling assessments in February 1909. He contrasted Sunday with what he saw as the overly academic bent of modern clergy, arguing that Sunday had carried his “manhood” from baseball into the pulpit. Fertig admitted that many of Sunday’s methods were objectionable, but insisted they bore the unmistakable stamp of originality and personal force. Seminary training, he warned, too often erased individuality rather than refining it .

That tension—between polished theology and raw persuasion—was a recurring theme wherever Sunday preached. Spokane proved no exception.

Measurable Impact on Churches

The post-revival accounting offers a rare snapshot of how different congregations interpreted the results.

Some churches reported substantial growth. First Methodist Church received 270 new members, while First Methodist (reported separately in another account) claimed as many as 360. Emmanuel Baptist added 45 converts. First Baptist expected at least 80. Central Christian welcomed approximately 60. Westminster Congregational received 30, and Plymouth Congregational added about 50 new members .

Other responses were more restrained. All Saints Episcopal Church reported 12 new members. Holy Trinity Episcopal Church reported none, with its minister expressing concern about conversions driven by fear rather than conviction. Our Lady of Lourdes likewise expected no new members as a result of the campaign .

The uneven distribution underscores a reality often lost in revival mythology: success was not universally defined, nor universally embraced.

Social and Civic Effects

Beyond church rolls, Spokane newspapers noted broader social effects. One headline captured the contrast succinctly: “Beer Sales Fall. Bibles in Demand.” While such claims invite scrutiny, they reflect how contemporaries interpreted the revival’s moral influence .

Financially, the churches emerged ahead. After expenses were met, including nearly $12,000 in costs and the feeding and sheltering of hundreds of homeless men during a severe cold wave, local churches anticipated a surplus of $2,000 to $3,000. These funds came from post-expense collections and tabernacle bonds that were allowed to lapse in favor of the churches .

The revival also intersected directly with political reform. During the campaign, 110 representative men traveled to Olympia to lobby for a county-unit local-option bill, coinciding with Sunday’s repeated delivery of his fiery “Booze” sermon. For supporters, this fusion of evangelism and activism marked one of the revival’s most consequential achievements .

Did Billy Sunday “Make Good”?

As the meetings drew to a close, Spokane’s press asked the question directly—illustrated in editorial cartoons and front-page reflections. By February 1909, the answer, at least in terms of attendance, conversions, and civic impact, appeared clear.

Spokane did not merely host Billy Sunday. For six winter weeks, it reorganized itself around him. Whether one applauded his methods or questioned them, the revival left behind measurable change, lasting debate, and a vivid example of early twentieth-century evangelical power at its height.

For Billy Sunday, Spokane was another city on a relentless circuit. For Spokane, it was a season that reshaped its religious and moral landscape—if only for a time.

Need help identifying this Billy Sunday Tabernacle

I recently acquired this image. It is obviously a Billy Sunday Tabernacle but I can’t 100% confirm its location.

It is close to his Lima and Toledo tabernacles, but its not one of those.

I am hoping the town in the background and the house on the right helps it being properly identified.

It feels like the 19-teens.

It almost feels like its Pennsylvania. I know he did a revival in Sharon, PA (May 1st – June 22, 1908. Sharon, PA (Shenango Valley).

Please put your thoughts in the Comments field.

Mother’s Day, 1909

ONE of the most impressive and successful days in the great campaign was Mother’s Day, as suggested by Rev. Mr. Sunday. The following request was published:

Every person is requested to wear a white flower or ribbon to-day in honor of mother. If your mother is alive do her an act of kindness. Telegraph or write to her, or give her a gift to express your love. If mother is not alive, perform an act of kindness to somebody else’s mother. The services at the tabernacle will be for mothers, although everybody is invited. Businessmen are invited to close their places of business from two to four o’clock, or at least to let as many employees off as possible. An offering will be taken at the tabernacle to be given to the Woman’s Club to be distributed to the charities of the city as the club deems best.

 W. A. Sunday

Source (text above): 1909 Springfield, Illinois souvenir booklet

Billy Sunday New York City campaign, c. 1917

“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.

W.A. Sunday

Where was the ‘tabernacle’ site and location during the 1923 Billy Sunday revival in Louisville, Kentucky?

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).

The Courier-Journal. Mon, Apr 23, 1923 ·Page 1

The Winona Lake Billy Sunday Tabernacle was demolished in May 1992

I was living in Winona Lake in 1992 – attending Grace Theological Seminary – when the Billy Sunday Tabernacle was demolished. Knowing this was the last time anyone would see the sole remaining Sunday tabernacle in America, I took these pictures.

Coverage: The Indianapolis Star. Sun, May 17, 1992.

Trail hitters remain firm, say converts. Circa 1918.

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.

The Washington Herald. Tue, Jan 29, 1918 ·Page 8

TRAIL HITTERS REMAIN FIRM, SAY CONVERTS

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?

Grace Saxe’s Prayerbook, c 1911

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.”