Tyler Street United Methodist Church

Oak Cliff once had so many churches along Tenth Street that the Oak Cliff Advocate counts more than twenty-eight congregations calling it home at some point. Eighteen of them anchored its edges, among them Tyler Street Methodist. The magazine reports that in 1950 the church held the largest Sunday school enrollment in all of Methodism, a claim it gives without a source. It adds that Cliff Temple Baptist, nearby, was in 1939 the second largest Southern Baptist church in the world, behind First Baptist Dallas.

What the plaque says

Tyler Street United Methodist Church On November 27, 1911, the North Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, appointed the Rev. J. Leonard Rea (1884 - 1965) to establish a parish in Dallas to be known as Tyler Street Methodist Church. The congregation was organized on January 29, 1912, with 166 charter members. A sanctuary for the new church was built on the corner of Tyler and Sunset streets in July 1912. The Rev. Mr. Rea continued as minister, and the first report of the congregation to the denomination Annual Conference revealed a membership of 304. By 1921 the need for a new building had arisen. A site was acquired at Tenth and Polk streets, and the congregation moved into a partially completed building that year. Construction resumed in 1923 and a large sanctuary was completed in 1925. During the difficult period of the Great Depression the church building was closed by creditors. The congregation met in Sunset High School from March 1932 until they could return to their facilities in the fall of 1933. Since that time, the congregation has continued to grow, and additional buildings have been added to the property. Tyler Street United Methodist Church remains a vital part of the community. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 3.0 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 3.6 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 3.7 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 4.9 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Winnetka Heights — 0.4 mi
• W. H. Adamson High School — 1.0 mi
• Frank Reagh — 1.2 mi
• Officer J.D. Tippit — 1.2 mi