Vandalism At Crooked Creek Church

An interesting old article from the Aug. 20, 1896 edition of The Crittenden Press tells of vandalism at the old church.

Monday night, when the large congregation that had worshipped at Crooked Creek Church, two miles north of this place, was dismissed, those who had gone to church horseback - and there were scores of them - found their saddles in a sorry plight.

Some were gone, others were cut into pieces, and the parts scattered hither and thither.  A general search was made for the missing articles, and scattered about the woods they were found in twos, in threes, and in piles, and all more or less torn and cut.

After they were gathered up and patched up for temporary service, and the people started home, they had not gone far when there was a hundred or more gunshots heard at the church.

Investigation showed that the shots had been fired at the church building and all of the windows lights on the north side of the house were broken by the bullets of the vandals.

Services had been held nightly at the church for a week, and everything was getting along pleasantly, and there is no way of accounting for this outrage.

The people of that neighborhood are good, peaceful citizens, and there is no one in the immediate vicinity considered capable of such wanton meanness.  No pains should be spared in the effort to discover the guilty persons.

This picture of the church was made in 1990, before the handicapped ramp was built.