View source for First Presbyterian Church (Murfreesboro, Tennessee)

{{short description|Historic church in Tennessee, United States}}
{{Infobox NRHP
| name         = First Presbyterian Church
| nrhp_type    =
| image        = First_presbyterian_church_murfreesboro_tennessee_2008.jpg
| caption      =
| location     = 210 N. Spring St., [[Murfreesboro, Tennessee]]
| coordinates  = {{coord|35|50|49.43|N|86|23|23.17|W|display=inline,title}}
| locmapin     = Tennessee#USA
| built        = 1914
| builder      = Maugans & Bell
| architect    = [[D. Anderson Dickey]]
| architecture = Classical Revival
| added        = June 24, 1993
| area         = less than one acre
| refnum       = 93000561<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2009a}}</ref>
}}
Murfree Springs Presbyterian Church was founded in 1812 in a log cabin. In
1818 it changed its name to '''First Presbyterian Church''' and in 1820 moved to a brick meeting house on East Vine Street. '''First Presbyterian Church''' currently is a historic church at 210 N. Spring Street in [[Murfreesboro, Tennessee]].
Murfreesboro was the capital of Tennessee from 1818 to 1826. In 1822, the
Rutherford County courthouse, where the legislature met, burned. The legislature then
met at the First Presbyterian Church, the largest building in town, with the House
meeting in the lower floor and the Senate in the expanded gallery. Present during those legislative sessions where Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, James K. Polk and Davy Crockett. Andrew Jackson was nominated by the state legislature to be President of the United States in 1925.
The Union occupation of Murfreesboro during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]  saw the church
building used as a hospital, for storage, billeting and as a stable. In 1864, the Union
forces tore down the church to use the bricks at Fortress Rosecrans.
The scars of the war experience caused the church to relocate three blocks away
to its present location at College and Spring Streets. A German gothic-style structure was
erected in 1867. A [[tornado]] tore through downtown Murfreesboro in April, 1913, doing
considerable damage to the Sanctuary, thus a new building, this time in the classic
revival style with a dome, was built on the old foundation in 1914.
<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mborofpc.org/history |title=Our History |publisher=First Presbyterian Church, Murfreesboro}}</ref> The building was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] with a recorded completion date of 1914,<ref name="nris"/> corresponding to the post-tornado reconstruction. The new building was designed by [[Nashville]] architect [[D. Anderson Dickey]]<ref>"Building News," ''Manufacturers Record'' 63, no. 24 (June 19, 1913): 72.</ref> and built by local contractors Maugans & Bell. A new education building was added in 1955, and a third section with a large “common room” with classrooms were finished in 1997.
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://www.mborofpc.org First Presbyterian Church, Murfreesboro]
{{National Register of Historic Places}}
[[Category:Presbyterian churches in Tennessee]]
[[Category:Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee]]
[[Category:Neoclassical architecture in Tennessee]]
[[Category:Churches completed in 1914]]
[[Category:20th-century Presbyterian church buildings in the United States]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Murfreesboro, Tennessee]]
[[Category:Churches in Rutherford County, Tennessee]]
[[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Rutherford County, Tennessee]]
[[Category:Neoclassical church buildings in the United States]]
{{RutherfordCountyTN-NRHP-stub}}
{{Tennessee-church-stub}}