Central Baptist Church, the Kiwanis Club are celebrating their 100th anniversaries this week

You know you are getting very old when there are 100th anniversary celebrations and you can almost remember when they started. I am almost at that point but only at about 80 percent of them.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

This week both Central Baptist Church and the Kiwanis Club of Corbin are celebrating their 100th anniversaries.

In this issue of the News Journal we published a special section about the Kiwanis Club. And for those who attend the service at Central Baptist this Sunday we helped prepare a historical magazine that will be handed out to those in attendance.

I have been more closely associated with Central Baptist than the Kiwanis Club but I have recollections of both from many years ago.

If you count the days when my parents took me to church in diapers, I have been attending Central Baptist for over 80 years. While preparing the magazine it brought back many fond memories.

On page two of the magazine there are pictures of every pastor that has served at the church. On page three are pictures of the interim ministers. The magazine has a written history of the church as well as many pictures.

The first congregation gathered at the schoolhouse on January 7, 1921 and they began regular Bible classes immediately on Sunday Jan. 9, 1921. From a wooden structure the church has had several building changes. It now occupies a full city block at 4th and Kentucky Streets in downtown Corbin.

The magazine contains a number of building, choir, auditorium, activities and other pictures. One of the pictures features the Sunday School Class of mayor Steely Terrell. In it, as well as several of the other older pictures, every man had on a coat and tie.
All of the pictures of the choirs have the singers dressed in choir robes. There are also different color robes.

The photo of the Corbin Kiwanis Club members taken in 1942 displaying a sign on a car that read, “We want to go to Cumberland Falls” has been displayed in books and newspapers ever since then. Of the four gentlemen in the picture I was best acquainted with I.O. Chitwood and Robert Blair. The other two pictured are Tom Gallagher and Wade Chandler. I now live on the property where Bob Blair had his home. It is called Blair Park.

Blazing the trail to Cumberland Falls and being the caretaker of Pine Hill Cemetery are what the Kiwanis Club is best known for.

But when you read the story in the special section written by Mark White you will find out they do many other projects.

When I write about Cumberland Falls I proudly refer to the work my father and mother did when DuPont Lodge was being built.

My father was the foreman on the project. Until the recent renovations his picture and those of the workers were displayed at the Lodge. I heard my father tell about building the bath house too that was located in the beach area of the Falls.

None of that the beach and bath house, is there now, but when I was in high school I spent many days at the beach. The bath house burned down and coal silt ruined the swimming area. My dad said it was a big task to get the concrete down to the bath house area. They built a trough, a long narrow container to slide the concrete down the hill from the road above.

As for my mother, she sewed the curtains that hung in the rooms at the Lodge. She did it all on her foot pedal Singer sewing machine.

I have had several occasions in which a 100th year celebration was held. One of those was this newspaper’s 100th.

I treasure the copies of that paper. We published several sections of that newspaper on March 12, 2008. I must brag about that effort. That edition of this newspaper had many historical pictures as well as great stories about the area.

In addition to these efforts this newspaper published a book about the 100th anniversary of Corbin which also was the 50th anniversary of the Nibroc Festival. We have also published two pictorial history books.

The older you get, the more meaning the histories of the various events get. Author Gary West did the town a huge favor when he wrote a book titled, “The Boys from Corbin.” It is a must read book that is available at the Corbin Public Library.

Here is wishing our best to Central Baptist Church and the Kiwanis Club on their 100th anniversaries.