Stephen F. Austin State University

Minister Raised Spirits But Closed The Bars (February 2016)

Minister Raised Spirits But Closed The Bars
By Van Craddock

Now, Dr. Alexander Bowles MacCurdy was a tad more subtle than Carry Nation when it came to shutting down saloons.
Carry Nation, you'll recall, was the hatchet-wielding temperance leader who made a career of saloon-smashing.
As pastor of Longview's First Baptist Church of 1899-1902, Dr. MacCurdy did his barley bashing from the pulpit.
A major issue at the turn of the century was prohibition, and MacCurdy and other Gregg County ministers were fighting to close the open saloons that thrived in Texas.
A native of Scotland, MacCurdy was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and of Princeton University Seminary.
According to "The History of First Baptist Church, Longview, Texas; 1871-1991:"
"(MacCurdy) had a homey manner which attracted people to him. He was the best-educated pastor the church had ever had, and he had a profound knowledge of the Bible and its history."
The pastor was a go-getter. Not long after arriving in Longview he began a drive to replace the church's small frame building. The result was a beautiful new red-brick structure.
In his 1936 "The History of Gregg County," Walter E. Jones wrote of MacCurdy:
"It was he who induced the congregation to build the second church planned after the pattern of modern churches in the East. His church was the most completely equipped and artistically arranged of any in the city up to this time."
The pastor could get his dander up over more than saloons, too. According to the church history one Sunday in July 1900, He "became upset with the managers, players and spectators of the organized baseball teams which regularly played on Sunday afternoons on a field near his home. That night at the evening service, he abandoned his prepared text and preached on 'Remembering the Sabbath Day and Keeping it Holy.' He condemned the 'ignorant' players, managers, spectators, and the Texas Legislature for participating in, watching, and permitting baseball on the Sabbath."
However, most of MacCurdy's thunder was directed toward the saloons selling the devil's brew.
The pastor died Feb. 2, 1902, not long before Longview held an election on whether open saloons should continue to operate in town. On Election Day (Feb. 28), prohibitionists carried the day and Longview's dozen or so saloons were shut down.
No doubt MacCurdy (not to mention Carry Nation) would have been pleased. Spirits were raised around town, but they weren't distilled anymore.
Although gone, MacCurdy had left his legacy on Longview.
"No minister ever did more to break down petty denominational prejudices and instill the principles of brotherly love," Jones wrote in 1936. "It was he who established a precedent by joining with the Presbyterians of Longview in a union service that initiated between the two denominations that has lasted to the present time."