The Historic St. Paul Community Church is the heart of the Sugarland Forest Community established by freed slaves after emancipation. Patriarchs William Taylor, Patrick Hebron, Jr. and John H. Diggs, as trustees purchased this parcel of land from George W. Dawson, a former white slave owner, on October 1871 for the sum of $25.00. The deed specified the land be used for religious worship, a school and burial site for people of African descent.

The original church, The Sugarland Forest Methodist Episcopal, was rebuilt as a community hall in 1930. Other earlier names were Curtisville M.E. (1880) and Taylor’s Chapel (1890).