Somewhere around the 1830’s there was a log schoolhouse that stood across the road from the tool shed west of our church. The young people that attended school there heard dinner bells ringing up and down the ridge one day and said “We’ll just name it Bell Ridge.”
In early 1903, Wigfall O’Hair, Mrs. O’Hair and the children, John, Smith and Lucille, moved out to their farm. Mrs. O’Hair said that she believed any community, any church group, should have an arrangement to take care of the young people with a Sunday School where children could be reared in Christ. On the 17th day of April 1904, a group of Christians met at the Bell Ridge School House and there formed the beginnings of the Bell Ridge Christian Church.
They appointed some men to serve as trustees. This group was made up of John Rahel, Bruce Gill, Wigfall O’Hair as Chairman and A.D. Zimmerly as Secretary-Treasurer. They immediately started operations to build the church. Ogden O’Hair and Jenny O’Hair gave an acre of land to the church. Immediately after the meeting, the group came in and cleaned off the ground and started building.
Joe Stephens, a contractor and architect in Paris, drew the plans and all of the specifications for Bell Ridge. The contract was let to George Hurst of Marshall and William Dahl was his foreman. Nathan Stephens was a carpenter. Ed McCullough made all of the building block that was laid under the church building.
Work on the building progressed so rapidly that by July of 1904 the corner stone, saying the Christian Church at Bell Ridge, 1904, was laid.
The church was completed and was presented to the congregation on the 22nd day of November 1904. It was accepted unanimously by the congregation. It cost $6,000 to build and there were no debts when it was completed.
The Sunday School addition was added in 1959. In 1978 the auditorium was enlarged and the new entrance was added. The education wing and fellowship hall were added in 1989. In 2002 a wing was added that included offices, an elevator and a few classrooms.