First Christian Church of Anna

Mantua was built to pay for a school. In 1854 William C. McKinney, James W. Throckmorton and Joseph Wilcox bought 200 acres from Collin McKinney's son Younger Scott McKinney and sold town lots to finance Mantua Seminary. To suit the school, the town banned gambling, horse racing and liquor. When the Houston and Texas Central laid track two miles east in 1872, some citizens bought land beside the line and founded Van Alstyne. By the middle of 1873 Mantua stood empty except for its churches, which moved in 1888. Its mail service ended on July 11, 1873.

What the plaque says

First Christian Church of Anna Liberty Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), one of the earliest Christian churches in Texas, was founded in northern Collin County by pioneer settlers Collin McKinney and J.B. Wilmeth in 1846. In 1854 a Christian seminary was established by members of the Liberty congregation about two miles northwest of here in the newly established community of Mantua. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad extended its track in a North-South route several miles east of Mantua in 1872. Mantua soon declined in favor of the new railroad towns of Van Alstyne (Grayson County) and Anna which developed here in the early 1880s. According to local tradition Mantua's Christian congregation split between the two new communities. Former Mantua church members and early Anna resident Rebecca Sherley helped organize the First Christian Church of Anna in 1882. The Rev. Alf Douglas served as first pastor. Services were held in the Sherley home until it burned in 1886. About 1890 the first sanctuary was built here at the site of the former Sherley home. Major additions to the rear of the sanctuary were completed in 1949. First Christian continues to serve the community with spiritual guidance and various educational programs. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 14 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 25 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 31 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.

More markers nearby

• Public Education in Anna — steps away
• Mantua — 2.3 mi
• Coffman Cemetery — 2.6 mi
• Highland Cemetery — 2.8 mi