First United Methodist Church of Terrell

The congregation backed a college that is easy to lose track of because it kept changing names. The Handbook of Texas traces Toon College, founded in Terrell in 1897, through Terrell University School and, from 1905, a Methodist school renamed North Texas University School. It became Wesley College in 1909, a coeducational high school and junior college that enrolled 210 students in 1909-10 and 150 the next year. Money troubles closed it in June 1911, and Methodists in Greenville persuaded the board to reopen it there in 1912.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Terrell The Rev. J. W. Fields (1817-1886) organized this church in 1873, the same year the Texas & Pacific Railroad opened a station at the Terrell townsite. A frame church was built and the Sunday School started in 1877. In 1900, when the membership had grown to 495, a larger brick edifice replaced the first sanctuary. This fellowship helped support Wesley College, located here from 1905 to 1911, and built the City Tabernacle, site of public gatherings from 1905 to 1915. Four sessions of the North Texas Methodist Conference have been hosted by this congregation. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 1.7 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 16 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Rockwall and Brin Church of Christ — steps away
• Homesite of Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of Terrell — 0.3 mi
• The American National Bank of Terrell — 0.3 mi