First Methodist Church of Farmersville

Farmersville built its institutions in order, and the Handbook of Texas dates them. The Little Flock Primitive Baptist Church was organized in 1855, the First Methodist Church in 1856 and the First Baptist Church in 1865. Private schools were operating by the 1860s, and the public school system was established around 1890. The Farmersville Times, a weekly newspaper, and the First National Bank both date from 1885, and both were still operating in 1988. The town itself was incorporated in 1873, so the congregations came first.

What the plaque says

First Methodist Church of Farmersville This congregation traces its beginning to organized Methodist classes conducted in 1856 by the Rev. J.W. Chalk in a local schoolhouse west of the pioneer town of Farmersville. A community-wide all-night revival held in Farmersville's lone church structure in 1870 aroused many in attendance to join the Methodist congregation. Arbor meetings were held for 15 years on property near Brushy Creek owned by Sam R. and Mary Hamilton beginning in 1873. The congregation built its first church structure at this location in 1875. The one-room building was razed and replaced in 1902 with a grand ornate church building designed by James Edward Flanders. The magnificent structure was destroyed by fire at great cost to the congregation in 1924. Church services were held in the Cornes Theater before a new Greek revival style church structure was completed in 1926. The congregation has a history of service to the local community. Space in the church building was used for a community blood drive and as an air raid shelter during World War II. Renamed the First United Methodist Church in 1968, the congregation has sponsored youth programs in New Mexico and participated in missionary work in South America. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 15 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.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 16 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.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 17 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Gussie Nell Davis — steps away
• Audie Murphy's Homecoming, June 15, 1945 — steps away
• First National Bank of Farmersville — 0.2 mi
• Farmersville — 0.6 mi