The first recorded meeting for organization of our present YMCA was held April 23, 1924 in the "rooms of the Chamber of Commerce".

Present at this meeting were: E.L. Kuykendall, B.G. Hazard, W.E. Leech, A. Stansel, H.H.Ellis, Joe B. Love, T.S. Raworth, T.W. Harris, R.E. Johnston, Birney Imes, Dr. J.W. Lipscomb, F.P. Phillips, W.F. Backstrom, R.B. Banks, I.I. Kaufman, H.H. McClanahan and F.F. Parsons.

Frank P. Phillips, Philanthropist and wealthy cotton broker of Columbus, offered to give $100,000.00 as an endowment for perpetual maintenance provided the city of Columbus would raise $150,000.00 for the construction and equipping of a modern YMCA building.  This magnificent gift may well have meant the difference between success and failure of our YMCA.  

On Sunday, October 27, 1929, the YMCA opened a campaign for building funds. The goal was set at $65,000.00 and a kick-off meeting was held at the First Baptist Church.  At noon the next day, the committee met at the Episcopal Parrish house where reports reaching $27,104.00 were made.  By the end of the second day, $43,808.00 was pledged to the more than 100 workers.  On October 30, a list of 1125 donors pledging $72,500.00 was published, thus ending this most phenomenal financial campaign.

F.P. Phillips was unanimously elected President, 
Dr. J.W. Lipscomb was elected Vice President and B.G. Hazard, Secretary and Treasurer.  Mr. Phillips, on taking the chair, requested Mr. Blake W. Godfrey, State YMCA Secretary of Mississippi, to put the directors in connection with a suitable Executive Secretary.  The president was instructed to prepare and send each director a list of persons to call upon for funds to further this work...and to report their results at 5:00 p.m. Thursday, May 1, 1924.  A letter was mailed to subscribers of the YMCA on newly designed letterhead bearing the Y triangle, asking for a signature on a pledge card and return of a check.

Earl L. Whittington was selected to serve as Executive Secretary at a meeting on May 3, 1924 at a salary of $300.00 per month beginning June 25, 1924.  Mr. Whittington came to Columbus from Helena, Arkansas, where he had been a YMCA staff member.

On May 26, 1924 the first operating budget of the Association was adopted to cover the period June 1, 1924 through May 31, 1925.  The total budget was $5984.50, which included Secretary's salary of $3600.00 and an automobile for Secretary, $700.00.  On June 11, 1924, the Columbus YMCA was approved for membership in the North American Association of YMCAs and was subsequently listed in the 1924 yearbook.

When it was discovered the campaign has exceeded it's goal, the city went wild as Church bells pealed, fire alarms sounded, whistles blew and automobile horns squawked.  In triumphant march the workers left the Episcopal Parrish house and paraded to the huge campaign thermometer at the corner of Main and Market Streets (now known as Main and Fifth Street).  A fire truck steamed up and the hook and ladder crew ran a ladder up to the thermometer.  The mercury shot out the top while the crowd that blocked traffic yelled and shouted.

Thursday, April 23, 1931, the Columbus YMCA building was completed and dedicated in a formal Opening Ceremony.  The total building cost was $75,000.00; $10,000.00 more than budgeted.  The finished building included an addition to the original plan: 18 dormitory rooms on the third floor.  The records do not show were the additional $10,000.00 came from, but reliable informants say that Mr. Phillips, seeing the need, paid for this dormitory addition.  A very wise and generous gesture.

Thus closed the story of the acquiring of the funds and the building of the magnificent Columbus YMCA.

For a history of Henry M. Pratt's role in founding our YMCA, Camp Henry Pratt and Scott Sims YMCA, click here. 

When the corner stone of the YMCA building was laid, Mr. H.M. Pratt placed in a hermetically sealed brass box a number of articles selected for posterity by the building committee.  These items were: a list of the 1125 contributors to the building fund, copy of the campaign book and prospectus, Mr. Birney Imes short history of the Y in Columbus, list of officers, directors and building committee, list of Columbus Churches and pastors, statements of Columbus banks, one of the Chamber of Commerce pictorial books of Columbus, copies of the Commercial Dispatch, the Holy Bible, a half dime of 1848, copy of the City's Centennial program of 1921, and a statement from A.W. Dill, who made the brass container.  Our YMCA is literally filled with history.