THE HISTORY OF FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

First Presbyterian Church of Wichita Falls came into being less than a month after Wichita Falls' official birth date, the town lot sale held on September 27, 1882, when railroad service began.

In the home of Col. and Mrs. Levin T. Miller at 808 Austin, nine charter members of the church gathered on October 21, 1882, and, with a gift of $600 from the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., organized our congregation. It was through the effort of the Rev. Henry S. Little of Denison, synod missionary for Texas, that the financial assistance needed to organize the church was obtained.

Charter members were Col. and Mrs. Miller, Judge and Mrs. Joseph H. Barwise, Sr., Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Knott, George T. Knott, Mrs. George Black, and Miss Lulu Barwise (later Mrs. A. H. Carrigan).

Members of the congregation were responsible for the first church building in the city. It was a frame structure erected in the 900 block on Indiana near the southwest corner of Indiana and Ninth. Dedicatory services were conducted on October 21, 1883.

The "Little Brown Church," as the First Presbyterian Church became known in the small community, opened its doors to all denominations for Sunday School and worship and, for a time, doubled in use as a school building.

It is significant that three men whose names figure prominently in the history and development of Wichita Falls were Presbyterians: Judge Barwise (the "Father of Wichita Falls"), J. A. Kemp, and Frank Kell.

Ministers who occupied the pulpit in the first church were the Rev. C. H. Johnston, the Rev. J. C. Ely, the Rev. Mr. Griffin, the Rev. W. K. Baird, the Rev. C. H. Hudson, the Rev. M. H. Kerr, the Rev. Henry Little, whose father had assisted in the organization of the church, and the Rev. J. C. Cahill.

In 1904, a merger was effected with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which had organized December 29, 1891, and built a church at Tenth and Travis. Charter members of the Cumberland church were Mrs. M. A. Boyd, Mrs. L. M. Boyd, Mrs. Ed Howard, Mrs. C. C. White, Mrs. S. H. Hodges, Kate, Jodie, and Emma Haynes, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Jordan, Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Nikels, and Mr. and Mrs. O'Kelly.

There were about fifty members in each congregation. It was decided that they would use the Cumberland church's building, and a pipe organ, the first in Wichita Falls, was installed.

The original church property was sold for $3,500, a sum the membership considered to be an excellent price. Its purchaser moved the structure to Eighth Street and converted it into a rooming and boarding house.

The Rev. J. J. Dalton was the first minister to serve the consolidated congregations. He was succeeded in 1909 by the Rev. J. L. McKee, who came from Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. McKee started the first Boy Scout troop in the church, which also the first in Wichita Falls.

It was during the ministry of Dr. McKee that the congregation outgrew the Tenth and Travis church, undertook a building program, and held first services in its new brick home at Tenth and Bluff on March 8, 1914. This third church building, later remodeled and enlarged, was occupied by the congregation for forty-five years.

"Churches in other parts of the country look to this building as a model to copy," it was said of the new church at the time of its completion. "The arrangement of the Sunday School and the general design of the building are along the latest improved lines."

An educational building was added and the sanctuary was enlarged in 1926-27 to meet the needs of a membership which had grown to about 1,000. Through the faith and dedication of the congregation, a building debt was paid off during the Depression years of the 1930's. The last payment was made in 1937.

The church's expansion took place during the ministry of the Rev. Nat F. Grafton, who was pastor from October 10, 1915, until July 1, 1930. The next minister was the Rev. George P. Horst, who died unexpectedly on the Sunday morning of November 29, 1936, and was succeeded by Dr. Karl F. Wettstone of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 1, 1937. Dr. Wettstone returned to Philadelphia in July, 1949.

Dr. Earle W. Crawford became pastor on February 1, 1950, accepting the call from the Wichita Falls congregation while serving as associate pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the church building at Taft Boulevard and Harrison Street, across from Midwestern State University, were held July 28, 1957, as part of a building program which found the church occupying its educational building on March 29, 1959, and the completed church edifice on March 11, 1962.

Dr. Crawford, who served the church as pastor for twenty-eight years, not only birthed the vision for the present church building but also led the way in developing Presbyterian Manor, a retirement center characterized by excellence and a superior quality of care. In the years before his death in 2008, Dr. Crawford also envisioned a residential care facility for victims of Alzheimer's Disease. Others caught the vision, and the Earle W. Crawford House of Hope, located on Stone Lake Drive, was dedicated in 2007.

Dr. Crawford retired and continued to live in Wichita Falls. He was succeeded in 1978 by Dr. Edwin W. Stock, Jr. Not long after Dr. Stock's arrival, the city was struck by two natural disasters, one year by a devastating tornado and another year by a severe flood. The church responded creatively to such crises and was instrumental in founding Interfaith Ministries, Inc. (IMI). During Dr. Stock's ministry, the Wilson Foundation presented the church with the deed to the Wilson House, a facility located on Lake Park Drive that would remain a center of activity for the congregation for years to come.

In the years to follow, the church continued its tradition of service. The congregation celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Sanctuary Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Earle and Helen Crawford Lecture Series. Youth ministry became a hallmark of the church, and alternative services of worship in contemporary style were made available to the congregation and community. Parishioners took the lead in establishing the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, and the nineties saw a growing number of the church's members involved in short-term mission work, including annual trips to the former Soviet Union, to Mexico, and to Native American reservations in the United States and Canada. Faith Mission, a community ministry in service to the homeless, continues to be a priority for the church.

The new millennium witnessed the remodeling of the church's Taft Boulevard site, with the addition of new classrooms, a covered driveway, and a reception area. An activities center, known as the FARM (Family Activity and Recreational Ministries), was constructed near the Wilson House on Lake Park Drive.

First Presbyterian Church looks forward to a great future in which, by God's grace, the congregation may continue to live out its vision statement to Seek Christ, Share Christ, and Serve Christ.