First Methodist Church of Mesquite

The railroad made Mesquite, and four older neighbors fed it. The Handbook of Texas says the Texas and Pacific founded a depot town in May 1873, named for nearby Mesquite Creek, with station agent William Bradfield as its first settler. Residents came from farm communities called Long Creek, New Hope, Haught's Store and Scyene. A post office opened in 1874 and the Baptists built the first church in 1877. A newspaper, the Little Mesquiter, began in 1882 and survives as the Mesquite News. The town incorporated on December 3, 1887, and built its square in 1901.

What the plaque says

First Methodist Church of Mesquite In 1857, prior to the incorporation of the town of Mesquite, a group of area residents began gathering occasionally for Methodist worship services led by circuit riding preacher W. K. Masten. Services were held in a nearby building known variously as the Frost Schoolhouse or the Bennett Schoolhouse. By 1863, the group had organized formally as the First Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Services continued in the schoolhouse until 1880, when charter members John L. and Lucy Futrell deeded this land to the congregation for the construction of a church building. Soon a small wood-frame structure was erected. Later damaged by a storm, it was rebuilt in 1900. In 1887 when the town of Mesquite was incorporated, charter member J. E. Russell became the town's first mayor, and the downtown area began to develop near the church site. As the population of Mesquite increased, so did the congregation, and several progressively larger sanctuaries were built after 1916 to accommodate its growth. Because of denominational mergers, the congregation changed its name to the First Methodist Church of Mesquite in 1939, and to the First United Methodist Church of Mesquite in 1968. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fair Park — 9.4 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 9.6 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 11 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 12 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.

More markers nearby

• City of Mesquite — steps away
• Sam Bass Train Robbery — steps away
• Site of Galloway Farmstead — 2.8 mi
• Site of Scyene Meeting Place — 3.5 mi