Seventh Street & Washington Avenue

See also St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (Mill Creek Valley)

In 1840, the Reverend William Paul Quinn (1788–1873), a leader in African Methodism in the West and in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) faith, brought the AME church to Alton and Brooklyn, Illinois, and to St. Louis. The following year, Reverend Jordan Early and other members of the new African Methodist Church in St. Louis secured their first place of worship, a small log cabin near the end of Main Street. Later, the congregation obtained a mission building from the Presbyterians at 7th and Washington Streets. By the late 1850s, the church moved to 11th and Lucas.

In 1850, when the Reverend Hiram R. Rebels (1827–1901) served as pastor of the church, he created a clandestine school to teach Black individuals to read and write. During the Reconstruction period, he went South and became the first African American to serve as a United States Senator. He was selected by the Mississippi legislature to fill the Senate seat once occupied by Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.

In August 1872, the congregation dedicated a new building at the same address. Later, the church moved to Mill Creek Valley and is now located on Hamilton Avenue as Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.