Wesley United Methodist Church, a Greenwood landmark at 800 Howard St., is getting a new 13,000-square-foot roof to replace the existing one, which had developed numerous leaks. Workers for Malone Roofing of Jackson began the installation Monday and expected to finish it by Tuesday. The current church building, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, dates back to 1922, when it replaced a wood-frame building that was destroyed by fire in 1920. The church itself was organized in 1870, and during the civil rights movement, Wesley was an organizing point for voter-registration marches. Also, the Greenwood office of the NAACP was housed there. “We’ve been fighting this roof for a long time,” said Dan Splaingard, a member of the church’s board of trustees who stopped by the site Monday. The replacement, he said, “is something we have been waiting to do and finally have the funds to do it.” (By Susan Montgomery)
