Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-14
bob" BURDETTE'S
REMARKABLE CHURCH

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
LOS ANGELES. Cal, April s, 1907.
Rev. Robert J. Burdette, best known as
Bob" Burdette, humorist. poet, lee
turer, newspaper editor and now pastor,
breaches on Sundays in one of the finest
auditoriums in the country famous for its
engineering departures, and used six days
in the week for grand opera and the per-
formances of a stock company. Temple
Baptist Church was organized by Bur
dette's friends SO that he might take the
pastorate. The congregation moved from
one place to another in the first year OF Its
life, paying rent to others because 1t had
no church of its own. Then one OF the
members of the congregation, Charles r.
Harris, conceived the plan Of combining an
office building, church and playhouse under
one roof and the people took it up.
The result is one of the greatest church
buildings in the world, one of few that
pay a large income to the church itself:
The building is built entirely of reinforced
concrete. Twenty thousand barrels OF ce-
ment were used in it's construction, and
seven times that much sand and gravel
Embedded in the building throughout are
200 tons of twisted steel, laid in the cement
Engineers said that it would be 1mpossl-
BILE to build the immense dome of cement
alone for the architects plans called Tor
a span of twenty-five feet high and 125 feet
across. But it was done.
Another engineering feat that was thought
impossible was the construction OF the
immense galleries, two of them without the
use of pillars. Cantilevers twenty-seven
feet in length were required. and when
they were done and tested with five times
the weight they would ever be called
on to uphold they sagged only .1S of an
inch. There are many other features or
the building that architects and engineers
consider wonderful,
In way the metamorphosis of the
preacher Is quite as wonderful as some OF
the engineering feats in the building. Bob
Burdette was a humorist writer and lee
turer but none Of his friends ever thought
of him as a preacher Until he came 10
California, six years ago, AFTER giving up
the editorship of the Burlington Hawkeye,
which he made famous, he was thought
of as a successful joker-that was ALL But
in his more serious moments BOB Bur-
dette had always been recognized as a
great moral force. He was religious by ma
ture and a good church man. When he set
tied down in his handsome Pasadena home
on Orange Grove avenue, the millionaire S
row. of California, he turned more serious
~ than ever to church work.
The result was that he was duly ordained
a minister of the Baptist Church three
years ago and since that time has devel-
oped into a preacher of remarkable force
and power. From 5000 to 5000 persons lis
ten to his morning sermons every Sunday.
He takes time to do a certain amount of
writing also, travels extensively and reads
omnfvorously.
Added to the interest attaching to every
one of Burdette's cermons is the music
rendered from that great organ, one Of the
largest IN the world, that is built into the
auditorium. This organ is one of the three
largest and finest in the world and has
sixty stops and 800 pipes.