VIDALIA, La. – More than 60 years after the entire town of Vidalia had to be moved due to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project, one of the town’s oldest church buildings is being moved again.

On Friday, a crew from Pineville began preparations for moving the old Bethel Church building, now located on Louisiana 131 in Vidalia, to its new home on Airport Road west of town.

Hoisting a 16-pound sledgehammer high into the air, crew worker Stan Earthly brought it down upon the steps of the old whitewashed church, which is thought to be at least 100 years old.

&uot;It’s harder than we thought, because the steps are solid all the way through,&uot; Earthly said, gesturing at a cross-section of the steps, which were made of solid brick and concrete. &uot;It’s that way with a lot of these old buildings, though.&uot;

Earthly and his co-workers, Clarence Fields and Steve Williams, began taking apart the steps at noon Friday. After a break for the weekend, they were scheduled to resume work today. By this Friday, the building should be loaded onto a steel-beam &uot;low boy&uot; rig for transport to Airport Road, said Overton Roland, owner of Roland House Movers, who supervised Friday’s work.

It will be relocated adjacent to where the church’s newer building and its Bethel Missionary School stand.

&uot;We actually left the old building in 1994 because we needed more space,&uot; said the Rev. Troy Thomas, Bethel Church’s pastor since June 1985.

&uot;We will probably use the old building, once it is moved and set up, for recreation or feeding the hungry or something for the youth. But it will be used for something.&uot;

A dedication service will probably be held once the old building is in place, but a date for that ceremony has not yet been set, Thomas said.