Site of First Church Building in Waco
Waco, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Near this site about 1850, according to local tradition, worshipers gathered in a simple log house to hear Methodist Minister Joseph P. Sneed deliver a sermon. The house, long since removed, is considered the first Waco church building, and Sneed's followers are credited with founding Waco's first Methodist congregation. Sneed had previously served as an itinerant Methodist preacher with the Mississippi Conference in Lousiana and Arkansas. After 1851 he remained in Texas and died in Milam County in 1881. About 1851 the Methodists erected a frame church at Second and Jackson street (2 blocks SW), with Sneed as pastor. That building also served as a Sunday school and was later used by both Baptists and Presbyterians. In 1858 the Methodists built a brick church at Third and Franklin streets (three blocks west), no longer extant. The congregation moved services back to Second and Jackson streets in 1868 to meet in the new Waco Female College, a Methodist Institute. In 1879 these Methodists moved to an imposing new structure at Fifth and Jackson streets (five blocks SW). This congregation, known officially as First Methodist Church after 1919 and unofficially as the "Mother Church," moved in 1963 to 4901 Cobbs Drive.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Around 1850, when Waco was a rough young settlement on the Brazos, worshipers reportedly crowded into a log house to hear the itinerant Methodist preacher Joseph P. Sneed — the beginning, by local tradition, of the town's first congregation. Over more than a century that flock moved through a frame chapel, a brick church, and the halls of Waco Female College before settling into ever-grander sanctuaries. Known affectionately as the "Mother Church," it traced the growth of Waco itself from log cabins to a thriving Texas city.
Why it matters
Circuit-riding preachers like Sneed planted the churches and schools that anchored civic life across the expanding Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · Joseph P. Sneed
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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