First Christian Church of Plano
Plano, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Kentucky natives William and Ruth Forman moved to Texas in 1846, and acquired land that included the future location of Plano. The Forman's daughter Letitia married George Barnett in 1853. The Barnetts bought land northwest of Plano along Spring Creek. The First Christian Church was established in the mid-1850s on the Barnett farm. A small frame building served as both a school and church, with traveling ministers serving the church. In 1873, another church building was erected on the corner of East 16th Street and Avenue G in Plano. The structure consisted of one large room with a center aisle, coal oil lamps, and a single table serving as both a pulpit and communion table. During the fifty-year period from 1899-1949 called the "Golden Age" by the members, the church experienced significant growth and a larger structure was built at East 15th Street on the corner of Avenue H. In later years another sanctuary was needed to accommodate continued growth. An active part of the community since its beginnings, the congregation maintains an outreach program and administers scholarships that benefit the citizens of the area and beyond. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The First Christian Church of Plano grew from land settled by Kentucky natives William and Ruth Forman, who came to Texas in 1846 and whose family ties led to a congregation founded on the Barnett farm in the mid-1850s. A small frame building first served as both school and church, lit by coal oil lamps with a single table for pulpit and communion, before larger sanctuaries rose in town over the following decades. Through what members called its 1899–1949 "Golden Age" of growth, the church became a lasting fixture of community life in Plano.
Why it matters
The congregation's story shows how frontier churches doubled as schools and social anchors, growing alongside the North Texas towns they helped settle.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
William and Ruth Forman came to Texas in 1846, the year after Texas joined the Union. North Texas was then thinly settled prairie and creek-bottom woodland, and land was drawing families from the Upper South, especially Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. In the 1840s the Peters Colony land grants also brought many settlers to the region that became Collin County.
Those settlers brought their churches with them. Kentucky was a heartland of the Restoration Movement, the early-1800s American religious movement that gave rise to Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ congregations. Its members stressed simple worship and the New Testament church, and the movement spread west along with Kentucky families.
The area's fortunes changed when the railroad arrived in the 1870s. Plano grew from a farming crossroads into a market town. The church's move into town in 1873 fits that pattern, as rural congregations followed their members to the growing railroad communities.
People & events
The Formans, both Kentucky natives, bought land that included the future site of Plano. In 1853 their daughter Letitia married George Barnett, and the couple settled northwest of Plano along Spring Creek. In the mid-1850s the First Christian Church was organized right on the Barnett farm, which made the family's homestead the birthplace of a congregation.
The first meetinghouse was a small frame building that served as both school and church. There was no full-time pastor. Traveling ministers came through to lead services, as they did throughout the frontier, where congregations far outnumbered settled clergy.
In 1873 the congregation built a church in Plano, at East 16th Street and Avenue G. It was plain and practical: one big room with a center aisle, coal oil lamps for light, and a single table that served as both pulpit and communion table. From 1899 to 1949, a stretch members called the 'Golden Age,' the church grew enough to build a larger building at East 15th Street and Avenue H. Later growth required yet another sanctuary, and the congregation went on to run outreach programs and award scholarships to local students.
Its place in the American story
Frontier churches often doubled as schoolhouses, and this one did exactly that. In much of rural America before public school systems were established, a single plain building held worship on Sunday and lessons during the week. The church and the school grew up together, and both helped turn a scattering of farms into a community.
The church also reflects the westward spread of a distinctly American religious tradition. The Restoration Movement took root in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley, and families like the Formans and Barnetts carried it into Texas and beyond. The simplicity of the 1873 building, with one table for both preaching and communion, fits that movement's focus on plain, unadorned worship.
Finally, the congregation's journey from a farm on Spring Creek to a series of larger sanctuaries in town mirrors Plano's own growth, from frontier settlement to railroad town to a major Dallas-area city. Continuing to award scholarships keeps alive the link to education that began in that first schoolhouse-church.
If you visit
First Christian Church of Plano is an active congregation, so visit respectfully. Read the marker, look over the building from public spaces, and remember that services and church activities may be going on.
Use the marker as a time machine. Picture the 1873 church a block or so away at 16th and Avenue G: a single room, coal oil lamps flickering, one table up front for both the sermon and communion. Then picture the farmhouse church on Spring Creek before that, where children did their lessons in the same room their families worshipped in on Sunday.
The stop pairs nicely with a walk around Plano's historic downtown, where you can get a feel for the railroad-era town the congregation moved into. For families, it's a good chance to compare schools then and now. What would it be like to go to class in a one-room building that was also your church?
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William Forman
- · Ruth Forman
- · George Barnett
- · Letitia Barnett
Themes & tags
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