Billy Sunday

Billy Sunday (William Ashley Sunday) (November 19, 1862 - November 6, 1935) was a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings during the 1880s before becoming one of the most popular and influential American evangelists during the first two decades of the 20th century. Sunday was a very vocal opponent of teaching evolution in schools and he held revival meetings in Tennessee during the passage of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute. No one, not Billy Graham not ANY preacher before or since had the influence and overall draw that Billy Sunday had.

The Charleston Tabernacle

Billy Sunday Revival

In 1922 Billy Sunday held a four-week revival in Charleston, West Virginia in a pine tabernacle built especially for the
meeting. The tabernacle seated 6,500, but it would not hold the crowds that attended. During the meeting it would be filled, emptied and filled again. He preached to 20,000 in three services on one Sunday with 1,683 responding. Billy preached hard. He preached against cocaine, flappers, liquor, spiritualism, whiskey, dancing, card playing, the theater and anything else that he thought was keeping people from getting right with God.

Sunday was acrobatic and dramatic. He would sometimes pick up a chair and have a fight with the devil. People

were spellbound as Sunday engaged the devil in a death struggle. Sunday would choke, sputter, throw haymakers and finally, to the relief of people on the edge of their seats, he would defeat the devil.

It is reported that 11,000 walked the sawdust trail (made professions of conversion) during the meeting. Dishpans

were used for offering plates, and the total offerings amounted to $36,000. Pat Withrow of the Union Mission
was active in the meeting. He and Billy Sunday were friends, and it is likely that he was responsible for the famed
evangelist holding the meeting in Charleston. Homer Rodeheaver, Billy’s song leader for 20 years, led the singing,

played his trombone, and sang solos during the meeting.

Billy Sunday revivals were held all over America and drew hundreds of thousands of people.
Volunteers build huge Tabernacles in every city of any size. Charleston was no exception.

There are thousands of pages of information on Billy Sunday on the Internet

Click here to get a good idea of just how big these Tabernacles were

Most every Tabernacle was a huge building. As a matter of fact, the Tabernacle here was the largest building in the early 20s as far as total number of seats. This is important because John Phillip Sousa needed a place to play that would hold many thousands, and the Tabernacle was the only building that could do that. And since Billy Sunday was friends with Sousa, the concert was held in the Tabernacle with the blessing of the church members involved.

So.... what was built in the place of the Tabernacle?

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Coyles

Coyle & Richardson Department Store

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