Branham's Pentecostal History Examined: Pentecostal Publishing Company

While going through some of the historical documents in the archive, we came across a very interesting find.  An issue of The Pentecostal Advocate published April 7, 1907, just one year after the Azusa Street Revival of 1906.  It was published out of Peniel, TX., and sold for 5 cents per copy (approx. a dollar and a half in today's money).  

At first examination, it seemed that this document would be better filed under Roy E. Davis.  Davis, William Branham's first mentor, pastor, and the man who baptized him into the Pentecostal Faith,[1] was originally from Texas, and would have been more likely to have come in contact with the Pentecostal Advocate than William Branham.  While reading the newsletter, however, one thing jumped out at us: "Pentecostal Pub. Co. Box 100, Louisville, KY".

In later versions of William Branham's stage persona, Branham re-wrote his own history to claim that Davis was a Baptist minister instead of Pentecostal, that his "Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle" was instead a "Baptist Church",[2]  and that he himself did not receive the "Pentecostal call" until after the 1937 flood.  Davis was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan and toured with Branham, and during those times, Branham called him a Baptist minister.

Branham, William. 1952, September. God's Way That's Been Made For Us (52-0900). "Now you good Baptist friends of mine, and know that I belonged…I was a Baptist, and my pastor here is a Baptist."

In those versions of his Life Story created by his stage persona, however, Branham frequently claimed that he had never come in contact with Pentecostal people.  Instead, Branham claimed to have been on a "fishing trip" in Mishawaka, IN when he stumbled onto a Pentecostal meeting.  According to Branham, this was "the first time to ever come in contact with any Pentecostal people".

Branham, William. 1951, April 15. Life Story (51-0415A). "And I remember one day then I wanted to go on a little fishing trip up at Mishawaka, Indiana. That was my first time to ever come in contact with any Pentecostal people. And I went up to old Brother Ryan’s and went fishing. On my road back, they was having a…It was the—the P. A. of W., I believe it is, or P. A. of J. C. I think the organization’s died out and gone now, but—or reunited with some other organization."

The Pentecostal Publishing company being in Louisville, KY in 1907 gives Branham's new backstory a very unusual problem.  When Davis was fleeing government officials for sex with a minor, swindling, and more, he landed in Louisville, KY, just across the river from Branham's hometown of Jeffersonville, IN.  As a Pentecostal minister, Davis would have been in contact with other Pentecostals in the area.  

According to the advertisement, this was not simply a Pentecostal printing operation for a newsletter.  This was an important piece of Pentecostal history.  The Pentecostal Publishing Company in Louisville, KY, published "Pentecostal or (advanced) and Beginners Quarterlies, Sunday-School Illustrator(s), Pentecostal Youth Monthly Paper(s), Picture Lesson Cards, Advanced and Beginners Leaflets", and more.  It was a place that created the printed materials that evangelists such as Roy E. Davis and William Branham would have used.  When Branham toured the country with Davis, there is a strong possibility that some of their printed materials and/or other supplies came from the Pentecostal Publishing Company