The First Presbyterian Church in Tucson

Tucson's first Presbyterian congregation, and the second Protestant church in Arizona, organized here in 1874 and laid the cornerstone of a Gothic adobe church in 1878. It was a modest foothold for Protestantism in a Catholic, largely Hispanic town, funded partly by Tucson's own citizens. The building did not last: sold to the Congregationalists in 1881, it was torn down in 1917 to make way for a new city hall. Only this marker, in the old Courthouse Plaza, records where it once stood.

What the plaque says

On this site stood the first Presbyterian Church, and the second Protestant Church in Arizona. It was organized in 1874 for Presbyterian Missions in the Territories by the Reverend Sheldon Jackson and constructed by the Reverend J. A. Anderson, with financial support from the citizens of Tucson. The cornerstone of the Gothic style, adobe church was laid June 13, 1878 on land purchased from the City of Tucson within Courthouse Plaza. The building was sold to the Congregational Church in 1881. Construction of a new city hall in 1917 caused the church to be demolished.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tucson — steps away
  The Old Pueblo — four thousand years of farming under the sky islands
• Mission San Xavier del Bac — 8.2 mi
  The White Dove of the Desert — the finest Spanish Baroque church in the country
• Saguaro National Park — 21 mi
  The giant cactus, and the O'odham who count it as kin

More markers nearby

• Commemorating the Raising of the First American Flag within the Walled City of Tucson — steps away
• Edward Nye Fish House — steps away
• Arizona's First Public School — steps away
• Court Street — steps away