Site of the First Church Building in El Paso

Catholics had their own claim on El Paso's first church. Before 1881 there was no church in El Paso proper, and Catholics crossed the river on a hand-pulled ferry to hear Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Juárez. In 1882 lots were bought on North Oregon Street, and the church known as St. Mary's or Holy Family was finished that November, with its first Mass on Christmas Day. A year later it offered two Sunday Masses, one for Anglos and one for Hispanics. In 1892 the Jesuit Carlos Pinto was sent to found separate English- and Spanish-speaking parishes.

What the plaque says

Site of the First Church Building in El Paso On January 29, 1882, members of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, South, first met in their new sanctuary at this site. Built under the leadership of the Rev. John R. Carter, it was a frame structure with arched windows and a 40-foot bell tower. Other churches competed for the honor, but Trinity's sanctuary was the first church building constructed in the city of El Paso. The church built a second sanctuary here before moving to a new site in 1906. The present name, Trinity First United Methodist Church, resulted from a 1979 merger with the First Methodist Church. 1982

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 1.9 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 10 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 11 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• El Paso's Chinese Community — steps away
• El Camino Real (The King's Highway) — steps away
• Robert Ewing Thomason — steps away
• San Jacinto Plaza — steps away