First Methodist Church of Trenton

Trenton was founded on a railroad and a subscription list. After the Missouri, Kansas and Texas built through, a townsite was laid out, the post office opened in 1881, and the Handbook of Texas says private subscriptions eventually paid for a depot. The name came from Trenton, New Jersey. By the mid-1880s the town had 200 people, a school, two churches, some fifteen businesses, a steam gristmill, a hotel and a boardinghouse. Methodists gathered in the Union Church to organize in 1887, and a public school opened in 1896, the year of the first Methodist sanctuary.

What the plaque says

First Methodist Church of Trenton In 1887 members gathered at the Union Church in Trenton to organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first pastor was the Rev. W. J. Bludworth. In 1896 the first sanctuary was built, and the congregation included 200 members. Organizations were established for the members including those for youth, women, and men. Additional facilities were provided to meet the needs of the church as the congregation grew. Rich with traditions, this church continues to serve the community as it has for over a century.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 12 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.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 25 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 25 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 — 26 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

• First Baptist Church of Trenton — steps away
• First National Bank of Trenton — steps away
• Burns Cemetery — 1.0 mi
• East Shady Grove Baptist Church — 4.3 mi