Marksville Methodist Church

Seven charter members organized the congregation in 1897, and five of them were Joffrions. Evariste J. Joffrion gave the land on North Main Street for the first wooden church. A parsonage followed in 1927 and an education building in 1952. Hurricane Audrey damaged the church in June 1957 and the building was demolished. The Rev. Carl Lipe led the rebuilding, and a brick church went up in 1958 for $24,000, with a round stained glass window of Jesus at Gethsemane. The congregation paid off its debt on June 26, 1994, helped along by rummage sales.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Avoyelles Parish Courthouse: Solomon Northup Marker — 0.3 mi
  The Marksville courthouse where Solomon Northup was freed in January 1853, with a marker and a 2026 bronze that shows him rising from the mud.
• Tunica-Biloxi Museum — 1.4 mi
  The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Marksville, built around the Tunica Treasure that the tribe won back in court.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 21 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 26 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Joffrion-Roy-Luke Home — steps away
• Bailey Theater — 0.3 mi
• Founding Of Marksville — 0.3 mi
• Solomon Northup, "Twelve Years a Slave" — 0.3 mi