George Jones Memorial Baptist Church

The George Jones Memorial Baptist Church, also known as the "Wheat Church," is a historic church building at the former site of the community of Wheat in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. It is the only structure remaining from Wheat, a rural Roane County community that was dissolved in 1942 when the United States government assumed ownership of the land for the Manhattan Project.Founded in 1854 as a United Baptist congregation by 26 members of the Sulphur Springs Church of Christ, it was established in Wheat in the northern part of Roane County. Originally named the "Mount Zion Baptist Church," it changed its name to "George Jones Memorial Baptist Church" in 1901, after a local minister who had donated most of the land for the community. In the same year, the congregation built a new building, which remains today.The church is considered a good example of a rural vernacular church building. It is a three-bay, rectangular plan brick building with wood cladding, a square bell tower, and a standing-seam metal roof. There are two rooms in its interior, an anteroom and the sanctuary, separated from one another by a waist-high partition. A 1½ acre cemetery is located west of the church.