First Presbyterian Church of Temple

The Rev. Michael Mar Yosip, who led the congregation when the present building was begun in 1929, was an Assyrian Christian born in Urmia, Persia, in 1884, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He reached the United States in 1905, graduated from Davidson College in 1911 and Louisville seminary in 1914, and took the Temple pulpit in 1928. He served until his death in 1950, chaired the Bell County Community War Chest during World War II, and in 1943 issued a pamphlet against fascism.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Temple The first church established in Temple, this congregation was organized on October 19, 1881, under the leadership of A.A. Black, with the assistance of the Rev. C.W. Peyton and the Rev. R.M. Tuttle. The 24 charter members had been dismissed from the Belton Presbyterian Church in order to found the Temple congregation. The first and second buildings for the church were located on the southwest corner of North First and Barton. Construction of the present facility, the third for the congregation, began in 1929, during the pastorate of the Rev. Michael Mar Yosip. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 0.6 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 18 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 28 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• 42nd Reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade — 0.3 mi
• Temple College — 0.4 mi
• City of Temple — 0.4 mi
• Site of the Organization of the Texas Forestry Association — 0.4 mi