Just above Penn's Bottom, a soaring steeple lifts every eye heavenward above the mansion rooftops along Millionaires Row.  This year, the congregation of First Baptist Church observes 175 years of worship, work and witness to this community.  For nearly 125 of those years, First Baptist's spiritual family has worshiped in the massive red brick edifice at 871 Main Street, in the shadow of a precipitous century-old spire like that which first topped its corner tower in 1885.  Today, members and friends of First Baptist Church remain faithful to their spiritual ancestors who established this congregation, one of the city's "first" churches, in 1834.

Organized originally on Craghead Street, the congregation soon moved to its first permanent home on the corner of Patton Street at Ridge, a knoll which came to be known as "Baptist Hill" after 1859, when the Baptist-supported school now known as Averett University located on the opposite corner, the present site of Biscuitville.

Nearly a half century after founding the church, its congregation – by then too numerous for its Patton Street facilities – chose its present site, a lot valued at $8,000, fronting 100 feet on Main Street at Chestnut.  Like their sister "first" church denominations, the Baptists' move to Main Street likely followed Danville's population west and south, after the Civil War, to Danville's fashionable West End.  For $32,500, the local builder and church member J. R. Pleasants constructed the massive brick High Victorian Gothic edifice, with thousands of bricks procured, it is said, from the brickyard of John T. Watson, who lived just behind the new church on Chestnut Street at Pine.  The design, however, appears to have come from an architect far removed from Danville – John Rochester Thomas, of Rochester, New York.

The church grew and prospered until lightning struck the building during a severe storm in May of 1905, resulting in a fire which left only the walls, tower, and part of the steeple standing.  During reconstruction, Temple Beth Sholom and Roanoke College (Averett) served as meeting places.

Architects-builders Dietrich and Pearson, of Danville, reconstructed the church with form and details which survive to this day, adding also the present stained glass windows and oak pews.  More spacious educational facilities date from the 1930s and 1950s.  The Moller organ in the sanctuary dates from a 1947 refurbishing of that space.