First Presbyterian Church of Alvin

The Presbyterians organized in 1892, in a town living on fruit. The city's history says strawberries, pears and figs boomed in the 1890s, backed by a canning plant, an ice house and the Alvin Box and Material Company, while nurseries raised Cape jasmine. The Handbook of Texas adds a pickle works, a cotton gin, a bank, an opera house, six hotels and two weekly newspapers. By its list this was the third congregation in town, after the Methodists in 1881 and the Baptists in 1886, with the Episcopalians arriving in 1896.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Alvin The history of this congregation can be traced to 1890. Many families moved to Alvin at that time to take advantage of economic opportunities offered by the surrounding agricultural development. Among the new citizens were a number of Presbyterians. Led by the Rev. Robert Hamilton Byers, Home Mission Secretary of the Brazos Presbytery based in Houston, they conducted worship services in the local Methodist church and joined with their Methodist neighbors to operate a Union Sunday School. Soon the Presbyterian group was large enough to establish its own congregation. On June 14, 1892, with the help of the Rev. Dr. Byers and the Rev. W. N. Scott, the First Presbyterian Church of Alvin was officially organized with sixteen charter members, two ruling elders, and two deacons. Two years later the congregation acquired land at this site and built its first sanctuary. The 1894 building continued to serve the congregation until 1960, when it was replaced by a larger structure. Throughout its history, the First Presbyterian Church has served the community of Alvin with a variety of worship, educational, and outreach programs. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Space Center Houston — 13 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 21 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 23 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Emancipation Park — 23 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.

More markers nearby

• First Methodist Church of Alvin — 0.9 mi
• Confederate Cemetery — 1.5 mi
• Fig Industry in Friendswood — 7.8 mi
• Runge Park — 8.3 mi