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The year 1842 marked the beginning of the Baptist Wit-ness in Altoona. The First Church was located in Pleasant Valley and was known as the Regular Baptist Church of Pleasant Valley. A group of twenty-one members forming the church came from the Logan's Valley and Hollidaysburg Churches. They met in a small log school house in the Valley, at Collinsville. Subsequently the church moved to the Union School House, built in 1838 and located at Union Avenue and Sixteenth Street. It was used also by the Pres-byterian, Lutheran, Methodist and United Brethren con-gregations in the early years of their histories. In1853, one year before Altoona became a borough, the church moved into a small one-story brick building on Virginia Avenue (now Eleventh Avenue) near Clara Street (now Fifteenth
Street). Its first imposing church structure was erected on that corner in 1871. It was remodeled after a fire in 1908, and was totally destroyed by fire in 1912. The present church building at 1201-07 Seventeenth Street, one of the most attractive church buildings in central Pennsylvania, was dedicated in 1916.
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The first meeting house, the Union School House, located on Union Avenue and Sixteenth Street.
.:CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE:.
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