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. Legend has it he bedded down under a tree near the old river ford, where travelers crossed the waters in the years before the construction of the suspension bridge. Sleeping on his saddle blanket, the howling of wolves awakened the preacher just before dawn.
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. People reportedly traveled by wagon or horseback as far as 100 miles to attend the dedicatory services. The congregation at the time was almost 160 people. 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. The inaugural service took place in November 1879. First Church, known as the Mother of Methodism in Central Texas, helped other congregations sprout throughout McLennan County, and served as a leader in the movement to bring the Methodist Children’s Home to Waco in the early 1890s.
First Methodist celebrated its first century in March 1950, with a two-night pageant featuring 150 church members and a historical plaque unveiling with Texas Governor Allan Shivers, as well as radio coverage in Waco and Dallas. Just three years later, 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 better shape than it had been before the storm, according to most accounts.
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. The old First Methodist—the circa-1877 downtown structure—was demolished in September 1963. Bricks made of Brazos River sand, the baptismal font, plaster cherubs, and stained glass windows, and the 1953 steeple were left behind to be salvaged and sold by the demolition crew. Yet some pieces of the historic structure transitioned to the new space, including the 1876 cornerstone (given a prominent place in the history corner of the church foyer) and the old theater organ (a hand-me-down from the Waco Hippodrome when the days of silent movies ended in 1928). In July 2019, First Methodist "reunited" with Austin Avenue United Methodist Church and the latter became First Methodist's Downtown campus. Today, First United Methodist Church of Waco carries on the congregation’s long tradition of providing a faith community focused upon worship, faith formation, service, and outreach.
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]]>First Presbyterian Church of Waco is one of McLennan County’s oldest Protestant congregations, formed several years before Waco’s incorporation as a city.
On April 20, 1855, a group of Presbyterians in Waco Village petitioned the Central Texas Presbytery for permission to organize a local church. After receiving permission, the first nineteen members of First Presbyterian of McLennan County began to meet in a Methodist and Episcopal shared building on South Second Street.
Church members banded together to finance the construction of their own place of worship in 1870, spending $5,500 to construct a small brick church at the corner of Second Street and Jackson Avenue. The congregation soon outgrew this small building and purchased a lot on Austin Avenue in 1882. That same year on April 25, the church called Dr. Samuel A. King to serve as its first permanent pastor. Workers completed construction on the church in 1884.
As the congregation continued to rapidly expand toward the end of the nineteenth century, the church became increasingly focused on community service in addition to serving as a worship center. A choir was organized by the late 1880s, as well as a Women’s Working Society, which later became the Woman’s Auxiliary. Church members pursued local mission work while continuing to collect money in support of foreign missionary efforts.
By the time of the installation of Rev. Charles T. Caldwell as pastor on September 27, 1903, it was clear that the church needed to expand once again. After initial construction plans came to a halt when the Waco Street Railway Company announced intentions to lay tracks near the location for the new building in May of 1911, the church sold the lot for a profit and purchased new property at the corner of Austin Avenue and Eleventh Street. Church leaders contracted Fell & Ainsworth Construction of Waco to construct an English Gothic-style church designed by F. M. Mann. Dr. King returned to preach at the inaugural service on April 14, 1912.
Although the church continued to rapidly expand and develop, change was on the horizon. As World War I brought an increased military presence to Waco, First Presbyterian members sought to provide soldiers with a “home away from home” through prayer services, social events, and charity drives. Later, just months after the church executed an elaborate two-day celebration of its Diamond Jubilee in 1930, the effects of the 1929 stock market crash began to be seen around Waco. In order to conserve resources, Rev. Caldwell cut his own salary and reduced the church’s expenditures.
The turmoil of the mid-twentieth century proved First Presbyterian’s commitment to what members described as “sympathetic Christian charity.” During World War II, the church once again opened its doors to support Waco’s military population. Congregants also sent supplies to aid efforts of hospitals and the Red Cross between 1941 and 1945. The church served as the Red Cross headquarters for six weeks during the early stages of Waco’s recovery from the devastating 1953 tornado. Individual members’ contributions continued to support efforts in Waco such as Meals on Wheels, the Family Abuse Center, and the support of a Vietnamese refugee family. In 1971, First Presbyterian became the official home of Caritas, an interfaith agency for the poor.
On November 17, 1991, the congregation voted to borrow $1.4 million for its “First into the Twenty-First” campaign, which funded a much needed renovation of the church and the construction of extra wings for religious education. The church launched a yearlong celebration of its vast history in 2004, culminating in the sesquicentennial day on April 20, 2005. Today, First Presbyterian Church of Waco works to meet the spiritual, social, and practical needs of the community through its commitment to Christian charity.
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]]>During its decade of service, George Barnard’s branch of the Torrey Trading Posts served as one of the first commercial ventures in the Waco area. Transactions between white settlers and native Indians conducted at Torrey Trading Posts served as a vital part of Sam Houston’s peace policy in the mid-nineteenth century. Brothers John, David, and Thomas Torrey opened the first Torrey Trading Houses establishment in Houston in 1838. Over the next decade, the firm established trading houses in Austin, San Antonio, New Braunfels, and along the Brazos River.
In 1844, the firm opened a trading post on a small tributary of Tehuacana Creek, about eight miles below Waco Indian Village. George Barnard, a twenty-six-year-old native of Connecticut, was the proprietor of this post. After serving as a clerk for the Torrey firm in Houston for several years, Barnard became a partner in 1843. George and his brother Charles moved to Tehuacana Creek in 1844 to operate the new post, becoming the first white settlers in the Waco region.
Located on a high hill overlooking the Brazos Valley, the post was well-known by the Indians of the region since the site had served as a council ground for several years. Game was abundant in this area, and the trading post developed a large fur trade. Between 1844 and 1853, Barnard handled seventy-five thousand deer hides. Buffalo hides were also plentiful. Black bears were likewise abundant, and there were even numerous beavers in this community, though of a smaller variety than the northern beaver and with poorer fur. Here, workers sorted hides, packed them into bales, and freighted them to Houston by ox wagon. Barnard's principal freighter, L. H. Williams, charged two dollars per hundred pounds of fur.
Barnard's stock of trade goods consisted of almost anything the post’s Indian customers might desire, including heavy supplies of gunpowder, lead, bullet molds, and hatchets, as well as colored beads, blankets, cloth, dress combs, and refined bear's oil. Tobacco was in heavy demand, and Barnard's sales record also showed the occasional sale of a gallon of whiskey. In 1848, Barnard bought out the Torrey brothers' interest in the post for $9,500, which was about one half of the inventory valuation of the stock.
George B. Erath and Jacob De Cordova began to lay out the first plots of Waco Village in 1849. As the Indians began to move further away from growing white settlements, George and Charles relocated the trading post to the Brazos River in order to remain close to their primary base of customers. The removal of the Indians from the Waco area dealt a blow to business at Barnard’s Trading Post, and it is likely that the depot was controversial among white settlers due to its provision of arms and liquor to the Indians.
By 1851, Barnard bought a lot in Waco Village and moved his stock from the Tehuacana River. He sold the business to Fox and Jacobs, Waco’s first Jewish merchants, in 1857. The buildings of the original trading post stood for many years afterwards, the last being destroyed by a fire in 1929. The original location of this celebrated frontier establishment, which served as a point of peaceful interaction between white settlers and native Wacoans, was marked with a historical marker by the Texas Centennial Commission in 1936.
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