Blue Ridge Baptist Church celebrates 150 years proclamation by BOS

Blue Ridge Baptist Church is celebrating its 150th anniversary, and the Board of Supervisors approved a special proclamation to honor the occasion. The Board met at the Botetourt County Administration Center at Greenfield in Amsterdam on November 28, 2023.

Blue Ridge District Supervisor Billy Martin read the proclamation and presented it to members of the church who attended the meeting. Blue Ridge Baptist Church began as a one-room, log building in 1873 and has been the only Black church to serve the Blue Ridge community.

Pastors who have severed the church include William B. Crocker, Ottawa Pullen, Gary Alexander and Marcus Huffman. The church is a member of the Valley Baptist Association of Roanoke.

Blue Ridge Baptist moved into its current church in 1977 after a capital campaign organized by Reverend Crocker and members of the Ragsdale family, and within just a few short years the church was mortgage free.

The Board extended its congratulations to the, “small church with a big heart that sits on a hill in the southeast region of our beautiful Botetourt County on its 150th Anniversary.”

                                                                                          Anita Firebaugh, Special to The Botetourt Bee