East Main Church of Christ, Pangburn

The East Main Church of Christ celebrated 100 years as a congregation on July 1, 2007. The congregation was orginally founded in 1907 and thought no one is certain of the exact date services were first held. This is some indications that the congregation is the second oldest in the county.

billy Harris, a past preacher for the congregaton, believed that the church in Pangburn began as many in rural Arkansas. A gospel preacher rode into town on his horse, asked around to find a local congregation and finding none began a lengethy gospel meeting. What is known about the Pangburn Congragation is that after some were baptized in the Little Red River, the congregation began to meet in their original home - the local hotel located at the intersection of Searcy and Main Street.
In 1914 the auditorium in use today was constructed on land donated by a Mr. Castleberry. Several individuals are known to have assisted in the consturction of the building. Among those are Mr. Neely, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Billingsley and Mr. Jackson. R.C. McCourt reported that the church was the largest in town in thw 1940's with an attendance over one hundred on Sunday Mornings.

The congregation expanded the building in the 1950's and again in 1998. The current (as of July 1 2007) is Henry Huckeba

* - Portions of this story came from a news report in the Searcy Daily Citizen, Wednesday June 27, 2007