| The Palo Alto History Project |
| The First Southern Baptist Fire |
| The First Southern Baptist Church Fire In 1960, a roaring four-alarm fire completely leveled the First Southern Baptist Church of Palo Alto at Waverley Street and Forest Avenue. Although no one was injured in the fire, the event soon made headlines in newspapers all over the country. Why? Because as was eventually discovered, it was the church’s own pastor who had intentionally burned it down. At 8:49 P.M. on the evening of December 13th, 1960, the first alarm was sounded as flames became visible to houses across the street. Apparently, the fire had already been burning in the main hall of the church for more than an hour. Soon, the seven trucks and 46 men encompassing the entire Palo Alto Fire Department were on the scene and still more help was needed from Menlo Park. After battling flames for more than an hour, the fire was finally contained, allowing the 50 year old church’s adjoining classroom, as well as surrounding buildings, to remain largely untouched. But the heavy timber inside the church was ripe for burning and the building was soon reduced to the ground, punctuated by a loud roar as the steeple and church bell fell through the roof. When the roof itself collapsed, it was the end of the destruction that would cost more than $100,000 worth of damage. Some 300 people stood watching the conflagration including the church’s own pastor Reverend Leonard Rhoads, who nervously paced the sidewalk telling reporters he was “too shocked to think what we're going to do." But firemen were quick to identify the incident as arson. On the evening of the fire, Chief Wilson Merriam said that circumstances were “suspicious” -- pointing to open doors that had supposedly been locked. When first questioned, Reverend Rhoads admitted that he was the last one in the church. He claimed he had gone in through the back door to his office around 5pm that day. He knew nothing about the fire. But a month later after a lengthy investigation, Rhoads was arrested at his Palo Alto home and charged with arson. After failing a police lie detector test, Rhoads stunned his parish by admitting that he had indeed burned down the church. The 44 year-old also said he had burned down another First Southern Baptist Church -- this one in Fontana where he was pastor in 1956. When asked, he said he did not know why. He did say, by way of a rather unclear tangent, that his multiple sclerosis condition often gave “him a feeling of repression.” Oddly, the church parishioners continued to back Rhoads. Members of his congregation led by Claude Palmer put up $5,250 to bail Rhoads out of jail. Five Baptist ministers greeted Rhoads when released and said they did not believe he was guilty. Sure enough, Rhoads then changed his story. Days later he was claiming that he had been coerced into signing the confession “on threat of the gas chamber.” By June, Rhoads was saying that he was innocent by reason of insanity. In court, two psychiatrists disagreed about the minister’s legal sanity. But when a third doctor examined him and found him “mentally disturbed,” Rhoads and his lawyers reached a deal to plead guilty and agree to enter Agnews State Hopsital on five years probation. Later the full breadth of Reverend Rhoad’s pyromania would emerge. His car had been totaled in a fire along with his first church in Sultana in 1944. And not only had he burned down his church in Fontana, when it was rebuilt he had burned it down again. The Palo Alto fire made for a quartet of burned down churches. That’s a whole lot of hell for a Sunday service preacher. -Matt Bowling (Note: This article ran in the Palo Alto Daily News in 2007) |
| Palo Alto: Then & Now |
| 1960 |
| 2007 |
| Sources: Palo Alto Times, Palo Alto Historical Association |