Robert Reed Church, Sr. was born on June 18, 1839 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. From an early age he was known as an achiever and he strengthened the belief of his attributes as he became a businessman, a family man, a philanthropist and a protector and helper of his fellow man. Church began working on the Mississippi River at age 12. He began saving his earnings and looked forward to the time when he would have accumulated enough money to leave the river and enter business in Memphis. The opportunity to fulfill this dream and ambition presented itself after Mr. Church escaped the river during the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862.

Mr. Church had implicit faith in the future of Memphis and established himself in the city. At the close of the Civil War, he was a well known and respected citizen of Memphis. His faith in Memphis was demonstrated many times, but as a result of six disastrous yellow fever epidemics, Memphis lost its Charter in 1879. Church was the first person to buy a bond to help pay the city debt. His $1,000 purchase of bond number 1 helped pave the way for Memphis to recover and restore the city charter in 1893. Church later opened Church’s Hotel at Second and Gayoso. “The only first-class hotel in the city.” He built a park and auditorium on Beale Street near Fourth & Turley. In directing the idea and construction of the facility, he had the only business venture of its kind in America; built, owned and managed by Church.

The first black millionaire in the city, Church was one of the founders and the first president of the Solvent Bank and Trust Company, the first Black bank to be organized in Memphis. In 1880, when the Beale Street Baptist Church, the oldest Black Baptist church in Memphis, fell on hard times, Mr. Church and Solvent Savings Bank stepped in and helped the members and trustees save the church. Robert Reed Church Sr. died in Memphis, the town he loved and helped sustain, on August 29, 1912 at age 73. The Colored American, a publication from Washington, D.C., on February 16, 1901 wrote in part of Mr. Church: “He was a self-made man in the broadest sense of the term. Had no opportunity of the schools; he had no nucleus for wealth left to him by an ancestor, but with nothing but his hands, he made his way to success over every possible obstacle.”