First United Methodist Church of Duncanville

The plaque dates the church's greatest growth to the years after World War II, and Duncanville's own record shows why. A local history says the Army Air Corps leased land in southwest Dallas County for a landing field in the early 1940s, and the federal government built a military complex nearby in 1943. In the 1950s the base became an air defense command site with a NIKE missile launch site, and the population reached about three thousand. The Fairmeadows subdivision helped carry the town to about ten thousand people by 1964.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Duncanville This congregation grew from a Union Sunday School that was organized in 1882, soon after the railroad reached Duncanville. Classes met weekly at Union Hall, an interdenominational place of worship that had served the surrounding communities for several years. The Methodist Church in Duncanville was organized officially in 1883 with fourteen charter members and the Rev. George W. Owens as its first pastor. In 1889, during the pastorate of the Rev. C. G. Shutt, the congregation erected its first church building at this site. It served the congregation for about 40 years until a larger structure was built. First United Methodist Church of Duncanville, whose growth has paralleled that of the city, has seen its greatest increase in membership since the close of World War II. After years as a circuit church, the congregation became a full-time station in 1946. Through the years, the church has actively served and met the needs of the community. Many of Duncanville's earliest settlers and town leaders have been members here. With its founding dating to the first days of the city's settlement, the First United Methodist Church of Duncanville is an important element in the area's heritage. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 3.3 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 11 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 11 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.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 11 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.

More markers nearby

• Duncanville — 0.4 mi
• City of Cedar Hill — 4.6 mi
• Jordan-Bowles House — 8.1 mi
• Jordan-Hight Family Cemetery — 8.1 mi