Marker Name: First United Methodist Church
Marker Type: Roadside
Marker Text:
Inscription. Click to hear the inscription. Missionary Septimus Watson Ingham visited the falls of the Big Sioux River in June 1861 and delivered a sermon to about 20 residents of Sioux Falls City. It was the first Methodist service in the new Dakota Territory. Ten years later, C. V. Booth formed a Methodist Class, and a small group of Methodists held weekly meetings in the log "old barracks" of abandoned Fort Dakota. Assigned to be class preacher was the Reverend Thomas Cuthbert, a colorful, circuit-riding itinerant clergyman.
Cuthbert settled on a claim on the east side of the Big Sioux River near 26th Street. When his wife, Emily, and two children joined him, the family lived in a 10-by-12-foot part-dugout, part-sod home with a dirt floor. Pastor Cuthbert, who was born and educated in England, founded First Methodist Episcopal Church in 1871. Methodist Class members became the first congregation. Sunday mornings Cuthbert preached to his Sioux Falls followers and then rode his horse to Canton to preach in the evening. His circuit also included Hudson, Elk Point, and Beloit, Iowa. It was said that he would "preach when he could ford the river as there were as yet no bridges."
In 1880 the congregation moved into a new church building at the southeast corner of 11th Street and Main Avenue. Its large bell rang to welcome Methodist parishioners to worship, to call churchgoers attending two other local churches and, when needed, to urgently summon volunteer firemen. Following the long, hard winter of 1880-81, the Big Sioux River overflowed its banks and flooded much of present downtown Sioux Falls, including the church site. Stacks of lumber, intended to be used to build a parsonage, floated away. Church records note that "not getting discouraged it was tried again with success."
In 1890 a larger church building was erected at the southwest corner of 11th Street and Minnesota Avenue. This building too was outgrown. A third church home was dedicated in 1913 at this site, this building having been designed by architect and member John Chapman. Among the outstanding stained-glass windows in the sanctuary is the "Christ in Gethsemane." Lizzie Thomas, who attended services at all three churches, challenged members to contribute a "foot of pennies" and accumulated 12,500 pennies to help pay for the window's purchase.
The seed of faith planted in 1871 by the Reverend Mr. Cuthbert in the members of a small Methodist Class has grown and flourished in
those who have followed. The pastors and dedicated congregations of First United Methodist Church have provided a long history of
Christian service, support for home and foreign missions, and intercession in pressing social concerns of the day.
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