Church History

	The earliest known Methodist services in Waycross were led monthly during 1873 by the Methodist preacher from the Blackshear Circuit. They met in the “Academy,” a small frame community building located at the northwest corner of today’s Church and Thomas streets. The little building held about fifty people and also was used for school classes. In 1874 these Methodists built their first church house, a frame building, at the northeast corner of the present Church and State streets (first photo). Sometimes it was called “Union Church” as other denominations met there occasionally. Not until 1884 were the Methodists of Waycross assigned a full time resident pastor.
	The second house of worship for the “Waycross Methodist Church,” as it was called then, was built in 1893 when the congregation had outgrown the earlier church building and the town center had shifted several blocks west. They built a red brick church structure at the northeast corner of Gilmore and Reed streets (second photo). Church quarterly records state that on December 2, 1895, a group of fifty members, who had petitioned to do so, left this first congregation and returned to hold worship services in the church building on Church Street. The original congregation then began to call itself “First Methodist Church,” and the fifty who moved away adopted the name “Trinity Methodist Church.” In 1900 the Trinity congregation built a new red brick building east of the early frame church and tore down the latter. Additions were made to the Gilmore Street church in 1905 and again in 1951. In 1942 a separate educational building called the “Paul Harley Memorial Building,” named for a faithful Sunday School Superintendent, was constructed adjacent to the sanctuary.
	By 1959 the congregation had outgrown the 1893 building and a master plan was developed for entirely new facilities. An educational building was occupied in 1962. A new sanctuary built on the corner of Gilmore and Williams Streets was occupied in 1972, after some of the older buildings were removed. In 1973 the Arthur J. Moore Chapel, located on the site of the 1893 sanctuary, was completed. It was named for Bishop Arthur J. Moore who was converted at this church April 26, 1909. Bishop Moore celebrated his 50^th anniversary of his conversion at First Methodist Church April 26, 1959, and preached at the consecration of the newest sanctuary built in 1972. Waycross First United Methodist Church was designated as a historical site during the 1987 South Georgia Annual Conference.