First Presbyterian Church of Richardson

The church moved to Polk Street and Greenville Avenue in 1910, into a town that was changing fast. The Handbook of Texas says Richardson had fewer than 150 people and six businesses in 1901, when Sam Harben started the Richardson Echo. A telephone company followed in 1901, the Citizens State Bank in 1904 and the electric interurban line to Dallas and Denison in 1908. Lots in North Richardson went on sale in 1909. The Wilcox company built an electric plant in 1912, a thirty-piece band formed in 1914, and the town incorporated in 1925.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Richardson Organized on August 21, 1870, by the Rev. George L. Blewett (1821 - 1884) and twenty charter members, this church began as the Trinity Congregation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Early worship services were held in the home of George Henry Blewett (son of the congregation's founder), who also donated land for the congregation's first sanctuary, a one-room frame structure. The church became known as the Richardson Presbyterian Church in 1909, and in 1910 relocated to a new sanctuary at Polk Street and Greenville Avenue. Additions were made to the building as the congregation grew, and in 1954 this site was acquired for a new church complex. A sanctuary completed in 1957 was replaced by a larger facility in 1988. Since 1983 the congregation has been known as First Presbyterian Church of Richardson. Throughout its history this church has served the community with a variety of religious, educational, and outreach programs. A Sunday School program begun in 1880 has grown to serve church members of all ages. Outreach efforts include involvement in community projects such as blood drives, medical clinics, and food and clothing pantries for the needy. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fair Park — 12 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 — 12 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 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.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 13 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.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church Richardson — 0.5 mi
• Wheeler School — 0.5 mi
• Richardson — 0.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Richardson — 0.8 mi