Along with the First Baptist, First and Second Presbyterian, First Unitarian, and First Universalist churches, the First Methodist Church was constructed on Washington Street in the blocks east of LaSalle Street, making this area the religious center of the pre-fire city. The First Methodist Church is the only one of these institutions that remained on the same site. This site is the southeast corner of Washington and Clark, diagonally across the street from the Chicago City Hall and Cook County Building.
First Methodist claims to be the oldest church congregation in Chicago, dating to 1831, two years before tiny Chicago became a town and six years before it was incorporated as a city. Its first house of worship was a log cabin constructed north of the Main Branch of the Chicago River in 1834. Four years later, members floated the cabin across the river and rolled it on logs to the current site. By 1845 they decided they needed a bigger and more substantial home, and they commissioned architect John M. Van Osdel to construct it. Twelve years later they hired Edward Burling to design them an even larger building. In the image here, taken by Alexander Hesler from the top of the Court House in 1858, we see that building under construction.
