Original Site of First Methodist Church of Austin

The thirty-five physicians, from eighteen counties, answered a published invitation from ten Austin doctors. Forty-five members met again that November, took the name Medical Association of Texas, and won a charter from the Fifth Legislature on November 28, 1853. The society then lay dormant for sixteen years, until a meeting hosted by the Harris County Medical Association revived it in 1869. Its first constitution admitted "every gentleman of the Medical Profession" but shut out irregularly trained doctors. Women physicians were admitted in 1893. Black doctors stayed barred until 1955, and osteopathic physicians were admitted in 1972.

What the plaque says

Original Site of First Methodist Church of Austin Established in 1840 by the Rev. John Haynie (1786-1860), the First Methodist Church was Austin's second Protestant congregation. Services were held in temporary quarters until members erected their first meeting house in 1847 at this site, then the corner of Cedar Street and Congress Avenue. The Rev. Homer S. Thrall (1819-1894) was pastor when the small frame church was built. Thirty-five doctors from around the state met here January 17-19, 1853, to organize the Texas Medical Association. In 1854 the Methodists moved to a new brick church on the corner of Brazos and Mulberry (now 10th) Street. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — 0.6 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 1.0 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Texas State Cemetery — 1.0 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.

More markers nearby

• H&TC and I&GN Depots — steps away
• Site of John Bremond & Company — steps away
• Organization of First Protestant Worship in Austin — steps away
• Site of the Official Residence of Mirabeau B. Lamar — steps away