170 E. Fourth and Jones streets, Fourth Street Methodist Episcopal Church South Vestry, 1887; 1989. Fourth Street Methodist Episcopal Church South, forerunner of today’s First United Methodist Church (CBD 22) built a new $16,500 brick building at the corner of E. Fourth and Jones in 1887. This building was used until 1908 when the church, renamed First Methodist in 1890, built a new structure at Seventh and Taylor. As time passed, portions of the 1887 church were demolished, but some walls remained standing encased in a warehouse attached to the Fort Worth Press building. In 1988, as rehabilitation work was being carried out on the Press building, a portion of the old Fourth Street Methodist Church was uncovered. An 1889 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows a footprint of the 1887 church with the narrow portion that stands today clearly labeled as the church vestry. It was determined that the small structure – with its Gothic window openings – should be preserved. Martin Growald of Growald Architects drew up plans to preserve the structure. Reconstructors, Inc. served as the project’s general contractor. Today the simple red brick walls, reroofed and stabilized, stand on the eastern edge of the central business district, a rare artifact of nineteenth-century Fort Worth.
