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A Brief Pictorial History of
Centennial Park Baptist Church

Centennial Park Baptist Church has been a part of
the Grimsby community since 1876.

The First Baptist Church on Adelaide Street in Grimsby: 1876-1880.

Built in 1880, this lovely orange brick church was originally the site of the first Grout Foundry and Agricultural Works which burned down in 1879 at the corner of Elm and Mountain Street. The Grout Foundry was known for the invention of the horse-drawn grape hoe and the sulky plough. A year after the fire, Charles Woolverton, an experienced farmer of missionary spirit, with only 25 members of his little Bible School on Adelaide Street, built his church. It served the Baptist community from 1881 until 1967 when it was sold to the Pentecostals. The stained-glass windows were installed as a memorial to Charles Woolverton by his son Linus. Since the late 1980s it has served a more secular purpose as a banquet hall and upscale billiard hall called Different Strokes.

The sod-turning ceremony for the new Centennial Park Baptist Church, March 31st, 1968, with Mrs. Arthur Norton doing the honours while High Merritt, Rev. Duke and Rev. R. Strachan look on.

This is how the church at the existing location looked before the expansion in 1994.

The building today.