First United Methodist Church, here in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1984 under its original name, First Methodist Episcopal Church. This congregation began in 1845 through a series of Bible study meetings held in Rathburn Cabin, and those early years saw services held in simple cabins. The first church building was erected in 1848 on Fifth Street, south of Walnut, replaced in 1856 by a larger brick structure on the same site.
Four years after that brick church was built the congregation lost ownership, and for three years they rented the basement while the main sanctuary served as a public hall for concerts and lectures. In 1880 Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church and First Church merged, leaving First as the sole downtown Methodist congregation, and a new church was dedicated on Ninth Street in 1881. By 1906 the congregation numbered a thousand members, even after founding eleven other Methodist congregations in the city.
The groundbreaking for the present church began in 1905. Picture the 1905 groundbreaking here, and let this church anchor the downtown streets around it.