2023-2024 Odessa City Guide Page 33 First Baptist Church, 100 W. OO Highway, was first organized in 1874 as Mt. Hope Baptist Church. In 1879, the branch moved to the yearold city of Odessa. Until the frame church building could be completed, services were held in Gibbs Hall, which was across from today’s City Hall. Completed in 1878 for $1450, the building became the first official church home for the congregation. The original church was on Dryden Street, across from the present First Christian Church. The building was damaged in an 1886 tornado. In November 1924, a new church was built at First and Mason with 22 members. It later included an educational building, added to the west of the structure in 1956 and an additional annex completed in 1976. Due to membership growth and the need for a larger facility, the congregation sold that structure and moved in August 2007 into a new church building on property at the southwest corner of the intersection of Highway 131 and Route OO. The building contains classrooms, offices, kitchen and nursery facilities and a large sanctuary. The church completed the addition of The Refuge, a social, youth and event space. Many of the oldest churches in the Odessa area were chartered more than 100 years ago. The Presbyterian, First Baptist, First Christian, St. George Catholic, United Methodist and Church of Christ are six of the oldest churches in the community. Some of these churches have had at least six generations of family members in attendance. CommunityChurch History The First United Methodist Church, 301 S. First Street, organized in 1880, constructed its first church building in 1882 and an additional structure in 1896. Both were destroyed by fire in 1903. A new building was built and ready for occupancy by October 17, 1904. Since that time, the church has added a sanctuary, educational building, classrooms and basement, and remodeled the original part of the building. Damaged in the 2016 tornado, it has been repaired and a ramp installed in the rear for handicapped members. First Christian Church, 224 W. Dryden, congregation met for the first time in 1879 when the Greenton and Mt. Hope congregations blended into the Odessa congregation after the towns moved nearer the railroad. In 1880, a building was constructed from materials removed from the Greenton church, which dated back to 1850. That building was destroyed in the 1886 tornado and was replaced by a frame building which later burned. A third church, built in 1893, was placed on the same site and was dedicated on November 21, 1926. An addition to the church, which includes an elevator, was dedicated in 1995. St. George Catholic Church, 716 S. Third Street, dates back to 1888. Early church records were destroyed in a fire at the Higginsville Catholic Church. In 1888, the first church building was near the present-day 1912 Public School building. It burned a year later. In 1890, the church relocated to the southeast corner of Second and Dryden streets. The congregation remained in the building until August 1964, when that building was demolished and a church was built at Third and Phillips across from Odessa High School. Begun as a mission, the church received its first residential pastor, the Rev. James Hardy, in 1977. The church constructed a parish hall on the lot next to the church in 1978. A home for the priest was purchased in 1983 on Third Street, south of the church. A new building was dedicated in April 2005 adjacent to the former church, which now serves as a meeting hall.
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