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First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

In 1844 a Presbyterian, the Rev. John McCullough, and a Methodist, the Rev. John Wesley DeVilbiss, visited San Antonio and conducted the first Protestant worship service. The Board of Foreign Missions in 1846 sent the Rev. McCullough to San Antonio to organize this church. After two years the membership erected an adobe building on Commerce Street. It served as the first Protestant church house in the city. The fellowship declined in 1849, and in 1851 the Rev. Dr. Daniel Baker, founder of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Texas, and six members reorganized the congregation. The contract for a new church house was let in 1859, for construction on the northeast corner of Flores and Houston streets. With the beginning of the Civil War, the fellowship broke with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and building construction was halted. A storm in 1868 destroyed the adobe church building. The second house of worship was finally completed in 1879 under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. J. W. Neil. The Rev. Dr. Arthur Gray Jones led in the erection in 1910 of this Gothic Revival structure, designed by Atlee B. Ayres. In the 1920s, during the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. P.B. Hill, radio broadcasts of services began and the attached education building was completed. (1979)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

When a Presbyterian and a Methodist minister held San Antonio's first Protestant service in 1844, they opened a new chapter in a long-Catholic city. Organized in 1846, this congregation built the city's first Protestant church house of adobe, weathered decline, a Civil War split from the national church, and a storm that toppled its early building. Successive sanctuaries followed, culminating in the 1910 Gothic Revival structure designed by noted architect Atlee B. Ayres, from which pioneering radio broadcasts of services would later air.

Why it matters

It traces the arrival of Protestant faith in a Spanish-Catholic city and the growth of religious life across frontier, war, and modern Texas.

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Related people

  • · John McCullough
  • · Daniel Baker
  • · Atlee B. Ayres

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