About

Address: 202 White Avenue, Grand Junction, CO 

The Handy Chapel has housed a congregation affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church since it was built in 1892. The Grand Junction Town Company formed in September 1881, shortly after the forced relocation of the Ute Indian population. As part of its platting of the city, the Town Company offered free land, on the Northeast corner of the blocks between 3rd and 7th Streets on White Avenue, to religious organizations wanting to construct churches. African-American residents originally attended the Methodist Episcopal Church South on the corner of 5th and White, but asked for a church of their own. The Town Company deeded the land at 2nd and White Avenue to the African-American citizens of Grand Junction (and not to any particular church) for $1. The church served as both a chapel, and as a place of shelter and aid to traveling African-Americans, the homeless, and others in need. The physical church is the only of Grand Junction's original church buildings to survive.

In 1915 the Chapel House was built and became a location for those who needed a place to temporarily stay. It became a safe haven of worship and rest. In 1981 Mesa County District Court ruled that the Chapel and land belong to the Black community and run by a chapel trust committee. In 1984 the Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historically, the Handy Chapel would aid not only African-Americans in need when they came through town, providing them a place to sleep if they could find no one willing to accommodate them, but also poor whites in need of assistance. In 1982, it began hosting what is now an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, organized by the Black Citizens and Friends organization.

Related person

Josephine Elizabeth Taylor Dickey [1923 - 2016]

Related places

Grand Junction
Mesa County

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