First United Methodist Church of Paris

The merger the plaque describes followed a fire that nearly took one of the two churches. A. W. Neville, recalling March 21, 1916, wrote that Centenary Methodist church, on the block west of the courthouse, blazed several times on door and window frames, and bucket crews put those fires out. The courthouse itself burned. Neville added that a public meeting held the next afternoon at Centenary named a relief committee for a town where hundreds had lost homes and businesses. Neville wrote in 1930 and 1937, so the details are his recollection.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Paris The beginning of this congregation can be traced to 1843, when the Rev. James Graham organized the First Methodist Church in the area. It later took the name Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Meanwhile, another congregation, Lamar Avenue Methodist Church, was formed. After the destructive Paris fire of 1916, the two churches decided to form one central downtown congregation, and the merger became official in 1918. The Rev. Robert P. Shuler was appointed first pastor of the new congregation, now known as First United Methodist Church of Paris. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 1.1 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Eiffel Tower — 2.2 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 22 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• Paris Public Schools — steps away
• Robert Cooke Buckner — steps away
• Paris Fire Department — steps away
• The Paris Fire, 1916 — steps away