Mount Union Built A Tabernacle

On August 20, 1914, Mount Union turned out with picks, spades, hammers and saws. Lawyers, physicians, school teachers, carpenters, stone masons and merchants, even the newspaper editors and reporters, came to build a tabernacle for a four week revival led by the evangelist Bob Johnson, and the plan was to finish it in a single day.

At least 100 men worked on it all day, and by late afternoon the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that the job looked likely to be done before dark. It was to be 90 by 100 feet with seats for 2,000, the same capacity a Bellefonte paper reported. The women of all Mount Union's congregations served dinners to the men who built it.

The meetings were scheduled to begin on August 28. Within days the chorus numbered 500 voices under Professor W. W. Weaver, with an orchestra of twenty-one. One night men from the brick works, the creosote works, the extract plant, the tannery and the railroad marched through the streets with banners on their way to the services, more than 1,000 of them in line. Another night an extra service was held for the town's foreign speaking residents, mostly Romanian and Hungarian, with the Rev. I. J. Fuxa of Munson Station interpreting.

When the campaign closed after four weeks, the count was 1,114 decisions for Christ, a total attendance of 72,836, and 5,675 marchers in its parades. In thanks, the people of Mount Union gave Johnson a purse of $1,539.06.

Checked 2026-10-31 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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