Waples Memorial United Methodist Church

The congregation's own history records what survives. It says the bell in the 90-foot copper bell tower is the original from the Skiddy Street mission, and that the stained glass in the sanctuary and Madden Chapel was made by Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France. A. F. Platter pledged $12,500 toward the education building and gave another $12,500 in June 1927. In 1962 an engineering firm found the 1899 sanctuary structurally unsound and recommended demolition, leading to the 1965 church under the Rev. Walter L. Underwood.

What the plaque says

Waples Memorial United Methodist Church In March 1873, after a survey of the newly-established town of Denison enumerated 40 citizens of the Methodist denomination, Reverend Alexander Jamison was sent to the town to organize a Methodist congregation. A new church was soon established as a mission church of the North Texas conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church south, and Reverend Z. Parker served as the first pastor. The church's first structure was a one-room frame building located at 430 W. Skiddy street. The church was granted an official charter in 1881. Around 1887, Mr. and Mrs. E.B. Waples, for whom the church was named, became members of the young congregation after moving from Sherman to Denison. In 1888-1889, Waples released the trustees of the church from a 1,692.76 note for the amount of one dollar, relieving the church's debt. Shortly before E.B. Waples' death in 1898, he gave the first monetary gift to the church for the construction of a new, larger building to be erected at 830 W. Main street. Upon the completion of the new church, the congregation decided on the name Waples Memorial Methodist Church, South, to honor the faith and effort of Mr. and Mrs. Waples. A later church edifice was erected on the same property in 1965. The congregation established a Sunday school in 1910, and soon thereafter an Epworth League was formed. In 1936, the church began sponsorship of Boy Scout troup 605, which has continued since that time. Today, Waples Memorial United Methodist Church, the oldest existing Methodist Congregation in Denison, continues to serve its community. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 0.9 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 4.9 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Choctaw Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's history told from the Chahta side at Calera, with galleries from Nanih Waiya to the Trail of Tears and the reservation today, a living village and daily stickball.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church — 0.4 mi
• Forest Park — 0.4 mi
• Present Home of XXI Club — 0.4 mi
• Site of Saint Francis Xavier Academy — 0.5 mi