Tyler, Then and Now
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1888: St. James C.M.E.

A wooden church of 1888 or 1889 on North Border Avenue, bricked about 1920.

Town and civic· 1888–1891

St. James C.M.E. Church
What the sources put on the map by 1889, over today’s streets.Under it: Sanborn map, November 1889, sheet 1, the key map. Sanborn Map Company, Tyler, Smith County, Texas, 1889. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection.Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The record

  1. 1888 to 1891

    St. James C.M.E. Church goes up at 408 North Border Avenue as a wooden Gothic Revival church. Its cornerstones read 1888 and 1889; its 2004 National Register nomination says it was likely built between 1889 and 1891, under the Rev. I. S. Persons.12

  2. 1894

    With help from St. James C.M.E., ministers of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church found Texas College, north of the city limits.3

  3. 1920s

    The church is bricked: about 1920, by its nomination; between 1921 and 1929, by the Tyler MPS.12

  4. 2001 and 2004

    The Tyler MPS calls it the only known surviving 19th-century African American church building in Tyler, and its nomination the oldest surviving African American church in Tyler. It is listed on the National Register on August 20, 2004.12

Notes

  1. National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form, Historic and Architectural Resources of Tyler, Texas (2001) (atlas.thc.texas.gov); THC Atlas, National Register listing: St. James Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (atlas.thc.texas.gov). The church's cornerstones read 1889 and 1888. Research notes

  2. National Register nomination: St. James Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (NR 04000887, 2004; THC Atlas) (atlas.thc.texas.gov). Research notes

  3. Handbook of Texas: Texas College (Nancy Beck Young) (tshaonline.org); National Register nomination, Martin Hall at Texas College (2005) (atlas.thc.texas.gov). Research notes

About this plate

  • St. James C.M.E. Church: a filled pin marks the place the sources tie the event to. The dotted ring means right to the block, not the building. 32.35373° N, 95.30638° W, from OpenStreetMap address data.
  • Under the plate, the Sanborn map, November 1889 (sheet 1, the key map). It is placed by 12 street crossings that still exist; checked by leaving each out in turn, it is off by about 8 m downtown. How the old maps are placed.
  • The faint linework is today’s map, from OpenStreetMap. How the map is made.