For many years there had been discussion at meetings of the Columbia Association of Baptist Churches of organizing a Bible School at the Mount Pleasant Field.

At an association meeting held at Calvary Baptist Church in 1901 Percy S. Foster offered his house at the corner of Columbia Road and 13th Street NW for a Sunday school and meeting place during his 1902–1903 term as Association moderator.

[5] Metropolitan Baptist Church maintained a mission Sunday School at Scheutzen Park (earlier spelled Schutzen).

Metropolitan Baptist member Mrs. Rosella E. Bryant suggested that the location was too far for the children of 14th Street and that a new Sunday school should be organized there.

[6] At the suggestion of Captain Fred Beall, Charles Warner began investigation what could be done to organize a Sunday school at 14th Street.

[9] Late that year financial secretary J. H. W. Marriott got the idea to erect a large, electrically illuminated billboard on the roof of the house (pictured left).

[11] A movement for the creation of a national Baptist memorial in Washington, D.C. began in 1917.

In 1919 both the Northern and Southern Baptist Conventions agreed to add $175,000 each for the memorial in their five-year plans.

Gove Griffith Johnson pulled the wagon that received the scoop of the first ground (see image to the right).

[17] The Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia speculates that Swartwout's design may have been inspired by All Souls Church, Langham Place, London (1824).