Back in the 1870s in Parkville, Missouri, formerly enslaved men began to shape stones from a quarry. Eventually, they would be used to build a new Black church building there. It took lots of time, but in 1907, the Washington Chapel (C.M.E. — Christian Methodist Episcopal) Church was completed, and on June 29 of that year it opened in this former “sundown town” north of the Missouri River. For the next 100-plus years, it served members of Parkville’s small Black community.