Tryon church to be moved to make way for highway project

Members of the Tryon United Baptist Church worshipped in a rented performance venue Sunday as the provincial government prepares to move their church building on Route 1.

The Department of Transportation wants to make space to build a straighter section of highway in Tryon and the 150-year-old church is being shifted to a nearby vacant lot in August.

"The way the engineers had it marked, that it would go right through the middle of our church," Connie McCardle, a member of the congregation, says of the highway project.

The Department of Transportation approached the church about the move in February and the congregation agreed.

"We were kind of shocked, and hardly imagine how that can happen, but they're doing it," McCardle says. "And they've obviously moved buildings larger than that."

Some in the congregation look forward to a straighter stretch of road.

"I mean they had to do something with that road because that turn's a mean turn," Lester Callbeck says.