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The Avery Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church descended from a congregation which dates back to 1889. The congregation held services at two other sites in the years before 1907 when the building pictured here, Avery Chapel, was built at 429 E 1st (205 N Geary) in the Deep Deuce section of Oklahoma City. In 1959, the congregation again moved, this time to 1425 N Kelham to take over the vacated Kelham Avenue Baptist Church building. In 1917, a young Ralph Ellison moved into the parsonage of this church with his mother after his father´s death and it was in the church´s library that he first fell in love with books and writing.