First United Methodist Church of Van Alstyne

The marker says Van Alstyne organized the first district Epworth League of the Southern Methodist Church in 1894. The Handbook of Texas explains the movement: the church's General Conference authorized the youth league in 1890, a Texas State League formed in 1892, and meetings drew 10,000 members by 1896. Leaguers paid for a $13,000 mission boat for the Congo and raised nearly $120,000 in memory of missionary Ruby Kendrick. The league also gave Texas Methodist youth their first unsegregated meetings, at international conventions. It took its name from John Wesley's boyhood home.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Van Alstyne Outgrowth of Liberty Class, formed 1847 for Bible study and worship, in log cabin of Jim Creager (1.25 mi. S) by the Rev. Joab Biggs, of the Dallas Methodist circuit, and M. F. Cole. In 1855, after a rainstorm that detained quarterly conference delegates to listen to an all-night sermon, the Rev. Y. S. McKinney preached for three weeks and had 60 conversions. The enlarged class moved to Mantua, where it built a frame chapel on the town square and was renamed Mt. Zion Methodist Church. At founding of Van Alstyne on Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1873, Mt. Zion moved its building into town, to a site now in Van Alstyne Cemetery. By 1890 membership exceeded 400. The congregation in 1893 moved again, erecting a larger building at Waco and Jefferson streets, and changing name to First Methodist Church. In this sanctuary in 1894 there was organized the first district Epworth League of the Southern Methodist Church. Here in 1912 ex-president Theodore Roosevelt gave an address, and in 1917 one of Texas' earliest Boy Scout troops was formed. Present sanctuary was completed and dedicated in 1917, with dedicatory sermon given by the Rev. Sam R. Hay. The present name was given after a national ecumenical accord was reached in 1968. Incise on back: This historical marker given to the glory of God by Mr. and Mrs. Rea A. Nunnallee.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 18 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• First Christian Church — steps away
• Howe Lodge No. 430, A. F. & A.M. — 0.2 mi
• Fifrty Feet North to Grave of Collin McKinney — 0.3 mi
• Site of Campus of Old Columbia College — 0.4 mi