Prosper United Methodist Church

When Smith's Chapel came up from Rock Hill, it faced east on a lot near today's bus garage. Juanice Stanton's 1972 homecoming history says that in 1924 the old building was wrecked and its material used to build the brick-veneer church across the street. The plaque dates that church's cornerstone to August 1923. In 1953 this congregation hosted Prosper's fiftieth-anniversary program, organized by the women of all three churches. The Dallas paper that covered it noted that the town's 244 people still shipped cotton, wheat and dairy products.

What the plaque says

Prosper United Methodist Church In 1899, trustees of Bethel Methodist Church bought a few acres of land near the settlement of Rock Hill to build a new church, Smith's Chapel. In 1902, the entire settlement relocated one mile north to the new town of Prosper to take advantage of the railroad. Smith's Chapel and its congregation voted to move their church and it was renamed Prosper Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1923, the church had outgrown its simple frame structure and, in August, laid the cornerstone for the present church across the street. Through efforts and sacrifices of its congregation, Prosper Methodist Church continues to be an active and spirit-filled mainstay of the Prosper community. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 12 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.
• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 19 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 29 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

• Lee Lodge No. 435, A.F. & A.M. — steps away
• Prosper — 0.2 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Prosper — 0.2 mi
• Site of Rock Hill — 2.1 mi