Methodist Church of Carson City

Built in 1865, this is one of the oldest churches in Nevada, and it nearly didn't get built. The Methodist Episcopal Society bought its Division Street lots for twenty-five dollars and a pair of boots, but had no money for construction. Reverend Nims spent some three years hauling sandstone blocks himself from the state prison quarry, where convicts cut and squared the stone, and laid up the walls largely single-handed before dedicating the church in 1866. The same prison sandstone that built the Capitol and the Mint went into this modest sanctuary, still in use downtown.

What the plaque says

Dedicated in 1867, this church serves a congregation that was organized in 1859 and is often referred to as the “Cradle of Nevada Methodism”. Like many other buildings in Carson City, the stone used in its construction was quarried at the nearby State Prison. Reverend Warren Nims (Pastor 1863 – 1866) was responsible for much of the original construction . Altered extensively over the years, the structure with its octagonal porch posts and pointed-arch windows is still an excellent local example of the Gothic Revival style.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carson City — steps away
  The capital one man platted before there was a territory—where the Comstock's silver became coin at a U.S. Mint and a small sandstone city that has run Nevada ever since
• Stewart Indian School — 3.3 mi
  The federal boarding school that took Great Basin children from 1890 to 1980 to erase their cultures—its student-built stone campus now a tribally-guided museum telling the story in alumni voices
• The Flume Trail & Marlette Lake — 7.1 mi
  The other thing the Comstock took off Lake Tahoe—not its trees but its water, hauled over a mountain range through the highest-pressure pipeline on earth, on a flume grade that is now one of the country's great mountain-bike rides
• Sand Harbor — 8.9 mi
  The crown of Lake Tahoe's Nevada shore—car-sized granite boulders standing in water so clear the boats above them seem to float on air, on a beach the Washoe kept for thousands of summers

More markers nearby

• Stewart – Nye Residence — steps away
• Rinckel Mansion — steps away
• Orion Clemens Home — steps away
• Carson City — steps away