Historical Marker
First Methodist Church of Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, Nueces County · Texas
Erected 1982
The plaque says the church served as a hospital in 1854 and 1867 without saying what that meant. In 1867 the fever arrived in July with a man from Indianola, a Mr. Snyder, who died on the second. Counts depend on the day and the source: the county judge listed 59 by August 11, a private letter reported 131 by August 25, and later estimates run near 150. Nurses and doctors were scarce, businesses shut for about ten days, and two ministers and Dr. E. T. Merriman died. The fever faded in early September.
What the plaque says
First Methodist Church of Corpus Christi The Rev. John Haynie conducted Methodist worship services at Corpus Christi in 1846 as federal troops gathered in preparation for what would become the Mexican war. It was not until 1853, however, that a Methodist church was established in the city. That year the Rev. Henderson S. Lafferty directed formation of this congregation. The church's earliest building, the first constructed by a denomination in Corpus Christi, was a shellcrete structure located at the corner of Chaparral and Mann Streets. Situated on land purchased from Col. Henry L. Kinney, the founder of Corpus Christi, the congregation's early facilities served as a community center and schoolhouse. They were also used as an emergency hospital during the city's yellow fever epidemics of 1854 and 1867. With the construction of additional buildings, the original block served until 1955, when new facilities were completed on Shoreline Drive. The history of the First Methodist Church reflects the fellowship's steady growth, its active role in the establishment of several area congregations, a commitment to the development of the community and a dramatic influence on the quality of life in Corpus Christi. (1982)
Where it stands
27.78365, -97.39476 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Mirador de la Flor — 0.9 miCorpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
- Art Museum of South Texas — 1.9 miPhilip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
- Texas State Aquarium — 2.1 miA nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
- USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 2.2 miAn Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.