R. Bruce and May W. Louden House

In 1907, world-famous evangelist Billy Sunday held one of his early revivals next to the Louden home, according to local author and historian Susan Fulton. Fulton designates the location as five blocks due west of the Presbyterian church, which is the location of the Louden home. Records were kept of the Fairfield Revival altar call, and 1,018 people came to the altar during the week of the event. When the revival was through, the Revival tabernacle was torn down and re-constructed in <Chautauqua Park>, where it served the community for many years until a windstorm destroyed it in the 1930s. Wood from the ruined tabernacle was then used to construct the gazebo on the city square. So the Fairfield Revival Gazebo still stands in the center of the square to this day.

Sunday, a native of Ames, Iowa, had been a professional baseball player first for the Chicago White Stockings, then for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys and the Philadelphia Phillies. Hall of Famer Cap Anson was his first coach and mentor. In his final season he had an infinite(0.00) earned run average (ERA) with Pittsburgh.

But he left his stellar career in 1890 for the ministry. A Presbyterian and a confirmed ‘dry,’ he became one of the national leaders in the drive for Prohibition. It is said that he preached to over 100 million people in his career in the days before television and most radio.

Sunday's Revival tabernacle in Fairfield was not his first. His marketing technique was to build a wooden tabernacle prior to the revival event—essentially a large wood barn with board bench seats and a sawdust floor. The tabernacle would then become both the forum and the advertising medium as questions about the large construction project would bubble up in the community. Sunday repeated the technique during early revival events throughout Iowa and Illinois.

The property has been restored over the years by Bob Krause and his late wife Maryann Mills-Krause (passed in 2005) and by his present wife, Vicky Matthiessen Krause.