First United Methodist Church of Temple
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. E.R. Barcus served as the first pastor of the congregation, organized in 1882, one year after the city of Temple was founded. The original structure on this site was destroyed by fire in 1911. The present Romanesque Revival building was finished three years later. Architects were Sanguinet & Staats of Fort Worth. For many years civic meetings and school functions were conducted in the sanctuary, the largest in the area. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1882, just a year after the railroad city of Temple was founded, this Methodist congregation first met under the Rev. E.R. Barcus. Fire destroyed its original building in 1911, and the present Romanesque Revival sanctuary, designed by the noted Fort Worth firm Sanguinet & Staats, was completed in 1914. As the largest hall in the area, it long hosted civic meetings and school functions.
Why it matters
Like many churches in young railroad towns, it served as a civic anchor whose sanctuary belonged, in practice, to the whole growing community.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. E.R. Barcus
- · Sanguinet & Staats
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Temple Public Library
Temple, TX
In 1900 Temple's Women's Literary Club and Self Culture Club joined forces to found a public library, opening it first in a corner of the post office. A grant from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's library program funded a permanent building that opened in 1904, run for years by volunteer women until the city assumed support. After fire, moves, and a 1963 relocation into a former post office, the Renaissance Revival library endured as a civic fixture.
Temple College
Temple, TX
After two earlier failed attempts, Temple's civic, business, and school leaders joined forces in 1926 to found Temple Junior College, run at first by the public school system in the city's high school building. As enrollment grew, a separate college district formed in 1955 and the campus moved to South Temple in 1957. Long a springboard to four-year degrees in medicine, law, and engineering, it became a regional leader in health-professions training and was renamed Temple College in 1996.
Knob Creek Lodge No. 401, A.F. & A.M.
Temple, TX
Chartered on June 4, 1875 as Little River Lodge No. 401, this Masonic lodge began at Little River Academy south of Temple, meeting in a cotton gin before adding a second story to the Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse in 1879 and taking the name Knob Creek Lodge. As the area grew, the lodge moved to Temple in 1885 and, after a fire, built a hall that opened in 1906 on East Central Avenue. By 1960 it counted more than 700 members drawn from every corner of Bell County life.
City Federation of Women's Clubs
Temple, TX
After Temple's first women's federation founded a public library and disbanded in 1902, this organization formed in 1915 to coordinate the city's many women's clubs, meeting in borrowed spaces until its own clubhouse rose in 1947-48. Its members beautified the city, championed public health and safety, ran youth recreation programs, and backed educational and social reforms. For decades they supplied civic leadership—and the leadership of the creative arts—in Temple.