First Presbyterian Church of Victoria

The 1873 sanctuary has a second life. Lumberman S. M. Bailey rebuilt parts of the frame church into houses, and portions of them were still standing in the 100 and 200 blocks of North Cameron Street when the city was surveyed for the National Register in the 1980s. The congregation had chosen the northwest part of its block for the building. The same survey records that Victoria's Presbyterian and Methodist churches were founded by 1841, though some people claim each was organized in the 1830s.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Victoria One of the oldest church congregations in Victoria, the First Presbyterian Church was organized on October 2, 1841, by the Rev. William C. Blair and eight charter members. The first house of worship was built in the 1840s across from DeLeon Plaza. Worship and educational programs were increased as the church experienced steady growth. The Ladies Aid Benevolent Society was organized in 1872. One year later a new sanctuary was built at the corner of Forest and Liberty Streets. It continued to serve the congregation until 1923, when a red brick structure was completed one block north at Goodwin and Liberty Streets. The church relocated to this site in 1966. Throughout its history, this congregation has served the community with variety of worship, educational, mission, and outreach programs. The women of the church, under various names over the years, have contributed much to the life of the congregation. In addition to the Sunday school, youth programs have included the establishment of the Presbyterian day school in 1946 and scout troops. This church was instrumental in organizing new Presbyterian congregations in Victoria and nearby communities. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.1 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• De León Plaza — 1.3 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 17 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 26 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• William Robert Smith — 0.4 mi
• John Howland Wood — 0.6 mi
• Evergreen Cemetery of Victoria — 0.7 mi
• Darwin M. Stapp — 0.7 mi