St. James United Methodist Church, originally a Methodist Episcopal church, has existed almost as long as the city of Waco itself. Founded in 1874 by Anderson Brack, a formerly enslaved man, the congregation started with roughly fifty-three members. On the banks of the Brazos River, they worshipped, communed together, and worked to establish a permanent brick-and-mortar building that would serve as a central location for their Christian community. Along with the church, St. James also established a school that provided education to Black children in the Waco area. As they sought to secure a steady meeting place, though, they faced difficulty and discrimination.

Built in 1889, their original building at Second and Ross Streets was the first brick church for African Americans in Waco. St. James, established after Mt. Zion, was the second African American church in the city. After the city of Waco condemned their new building, they built a larger tabernacle in 1909 in the same location. They worshipped there until 1922. That year, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad Company purchased the property, citing eminent domain, and the St. James congregation built once more. This time, on Second and Clay Avenue.

Under the leadership of Pastor C. S. Williams, the congregation broke ground on the church in March 1924. Utilizing bricks from their previous tabernacles inside the new structure, St. James memorialized and honored the history of their church. Architect Carleton Adams, who garnered statewide and national attention for his home and building designs in San Antonio, developed plans for the Tudor Gothic-style structure. While members were eager to meet in the new location, the congregation experienced financial strain in the years to come after accumulating $85,000 in debt to construct the building, which took thirty-two years to repay.

At Second and Clay, St. James committed themselves to racial justice initiatives in the community as well as interracial partnerships. During the Great Depression, they offered a daily soup kitchen to Wacoans in need. They also held meetings for the “Waco Forward” movement of the 1920s that launched as a local effort to assist those struggling amid economic stagnation. Waco Forward hoped to improve Waco’s economy and usher in an era of progress and stability. St. James also hosted other interracial events, including concerts and women’s groups, as well as a “Race Relations Sunday” service in February 1945. There, they called for attendees to “build a nation and a world where there shall be no discrimination on the basis of color, creed, or national origin.”

After its formation in 1936, the McLennan County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met multiple times at St. James. At an “NAACP Sunday” event in 1951, which occurred during the civil rights movement, the McLennan County chapter formed a plan that addressed local and national needs. They also hosted another notable meeting in 1955, where the organization expressed their support of the “Free by ‘63” campaign. This campaign effort raised funds for numerous legal cases taking place during the movement. Those a part of the NAACP and the church sought to address and end discrimination in Texas and across the country.

Important to Waco and St. James, multiple prominent members worked within and outside of the church. Robert L. Smith, one of the first Black Americans elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1894, attended St. James. Prior to his arrival in Waco, Smith established the Farmers’ Improvement Society, which aided farmers who had fallen into extensive debt. Inescapable debt particularly impacted previously enslaved people who turned to sharecropping and tenant farming after emancipation. As Smith worked for these communities in Waco, he also served as a steward and legal adviser for the church. J. J. Flewellen and Professor J. S. Henry, principals at Carver High and Kirk Elementary, also attended St. James. Both schools offered educational opportunities to Black students in Waco. Lonnie Morris Belle Hodges, the church’s historian, strove to bring attention to the history of St. James. As the only living descendent of St. James’s charter members with continuing membership, Hodges worked to attain recognition for the history of the congregation and building. In 1986, the building received a Recorded Texas Historical Marker due to her efforts.

The congregation continued to grow over the years, exceeding over six hundred members during their strongest periods. Yet, by 2015, St. James had dwindled once more to fewer than sixty congregants. Deciding to focus more on fellowship and community rather than upkeep of an aging structure, they placed the historic building on the market. The church received a City of Waco Historic Landmark in 2017 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 12, 2019. St. James remains the only religious structure on the National Register of Historic Places in Waco. The building, purchased by local Wacoans Amy and Lane Murphy, remains a prominent historical landmark for the city. As they transition the church into a restaurant and event space, they plan to preserve the history of the congregation and the building. Members of St. James now meet in another location in Waco, joining with Wesley United Methodist Church each Sunday. There, they continue to commune and worship together. Through the remaining congregation and renovation efforts at Second and Clay, the long history of St. James United Methodist Church persists in Waco.

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The original Mount Carmel Center was established by Davidian founder Victor T. Houteff in 1935 about two miles outside of the City of Waco. Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant, left the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and accepted teachings from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1918. He began to publish a series of religious tracts called The Shepherd’s Rod, which the Seventh-day Adventist Conference rejected. In response, Houteff established the Davidians in 1929, calling for a reform of life. Houteff gathered a small following in California, and six years after establishing the Davidian Church, Houteff and thirty-seven followers left the state and resettled on a parcel of land near Lake Waco.

The 189 acres that the Davidians bought contained a river, forest area, and a clearing where houses and farms could be built. The main church and administration building housed Houteff, the administration of the church, and the publishing center so that Houteff could continue to publish new editions of The Shepherd’s Rod. A few other houses served as infirmaries, dispensaries, and living quarters because this community was designed to be self-sustaining. One of the main breaking points with the Adventist Church was that the Davidians believed that contact with the modern world was harmful for those who believed in Jesus’ imminent coming. In order to cope with this, the Davidians established a commune where they could heal their own sick, teach their own children, run their own community, and farm their own crops, selling the surplus to visitors for any cash they needed.

The Davidian Church flourished at Mount Carmel, even thriving during the Great Depression due to the excess farmed crops which they sold at a farmers' market open to the public. They also modernized their commune by constructing water and sewage systems, adding electricity and telephone connections. In 1940, the Davidians expanded the compound to 375 acres by buying up property to the west. The population also grew from the original thirty-seven in 1935 to sixty-four residents in 1940.

During the 1940s and into the 1950s, internal problems arose within the Davidians. Houteff predicted that the Second Coming of Christ would occur within one year, but that had not happened. It was difficult to recruit new members and keep old members’ faith strong when his prophecy had not been fulfilled. The population in 1950 had increased to about ninety, but it was still at that level in 1955 when Houteff died.

Houteff’s death was a problem in itself because he had preached to his parishioners that those who followed the word of The Shepherd’s Rod could not die, but would live eternally in a Davidic Kingdom on Earth. Houteff’s death broke up the church and scattered followers away from Mount Carmel because they no longer had faith in his prophecies. After her husband's death, Florence Houteff decided that the Davidian Church was too close to the city of Waco and needed a rejuvenation, and so she moved the church to the modern location about ten miles east of Waco near Elk, Texas. The seeds of discontent sown at Old Mount Carmel continued, splintering the Davidans into groups such as the Branch Davidians, who would later come to be associated with the infamous Branch Davidian Siege at New Mount Carmel in 1993. While the Branch Davidians have historical roots to the Davidians, the two religious groups are distinct.

In 1991, the Davidians repurchased a portion of their original land in order to establish a press to continue spreading Houteff’s message. Today, Vanguard College Preparatory School owns much of the former Mount Carmel acreage. The only remaining building of the Davidian Church headquarters was remodeled in 2011, with the Davidian’s eleventh-hour clock still inlaid in the floor. Waco’s Mt. Carmel Drive runs through the old Mount Carmel area, and Charboneau and Hermanson Drives are named after prominent Davidian families.

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