339 - First United Methodist Church - Waco, TX - Historic United Methodist Sites on Waymarking.com

First United Methodist Church marks its founding year as 1850, when the Rev. Joseph Perkins Sneed, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, preached to the inhabitants of Waco Village at the foot of Jackson Street on the banks of the Brazos River

In the summer of 1851, Methodists built the first church structure in Waco. The building would also be used periodically by Baptists and Presbyterians, both forming congregations in the young village. Composed of oak and cedar wooden planks planed at a horse-drawn sawmill just south of the town, the original church stood at Second Street and Jackson Avenue.

In 1858, the congregation erected a new brick church at Franklin Avenue and Third Street.That congregation sold that structure a decade later, and the city’s Methodists met in the second-floor auditorium of Waco Female College.

The cornerstone for Fifth Street Methodist Church—which wouldn’t become First Methodist until 1920—was laid in 1876, and construction lasted more than two years on the edifice designed by W. C. Dodson. On May 11, 1953, the tornado that swept through downtown Waco and killed 114 people heavily damaged the church. The steeple, a well-known community landmark, toppled from the winds, falling across the railroad tracks that ran past the church. Although the tornado caused considerable damage to the church, community contributions allowed the totally refurbished First Methodist building to be re-dedicated within six months.

In the mid-twentieth century, the decision was made to move the congregation to a plot of more than five acres of donated land in Northwest Waco. Members broke ground in April 1962 at Lake Air and Cobbs Drives for the facility that they dedicated in March 1963. Architect for new church was Henry Steinbomer.

The old First Methodist—the circa-1877 downtown structure—was demolished in September 1963.