First Presbyterian Church
Bryan, Brazos County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized Nov. 21, 1867, in the Presbytery of Brazos by The Rev. J.H. Hutchinson, this apparently was the second denominational group in Bryan. In 1871, members themselves built their first sanctuary at Washington and 29th Streets. This effort was praised by Synod as "the way to build a church". A new brick structure was erected at the old site in 1906. At present site, first services were held in educational wing, June 1958. Present sanctuary was completed in 1966. In its first century, congregation was served by seventeen ministers.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1867 in the Presbytery of Brazos, this was among the earliest denominational congregations in the young railroad town of Bryan. Members built their own first sanctuary in 1871 — an effort the Synod praised as a model — and worshiped in a brick successor before moving to the present site and completing today's sanctuary in 1966.
Why it matters
The congregation's century of building and rebuilding mirrors the steady growth of a Reconstruction-era Texas town from frontier settlement into an established community.
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Related people
- · J.H. Hutchinson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church, Bryan, Texas
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A member's letter dated November 1866 captured the hopeful founding of this Baptist congregation in the raw years just after the Civil War. Its first house of worship, one block west, was a two-story frame building that had been a bowling alley and saloon, where the earliest pews were planks laid across kegs. The present 1927 sanctuary is the seventh house of worship in the church's history and the third built on this site.
Brazos County
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Carved from Washington County in 1841 as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony, this county was first called Navasota with its seat at Boonville, then renamed Brazos in 1842. Through the Civil War, Millican flourished as the end of the railroad from Houston, but when the line pushed north Bryan became the county seat in 1866. The 1876 opening of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas — now Texas A&M — drew College Station into being around it.
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Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church
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