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 is a city in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Its population was 165,430 according to the 2023 census estimate, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010 United States census, 2010. Murfreesboro i ...

. 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

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

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 A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

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. The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

with a recorded completion date of 1914, corresponding to the post-tornado reconstruction. The new building was designed by

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

architect D. Anderson Dickey"Building News," ''Manufacturers Record'' 63, no. 24 (June 19, 1913): 72. 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.

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First Presbyterian Church, Murfreesboro
Presbyterian churches in Tennessee Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Neoclassical architecture in Tennessee Churches completed in 1914 20th-century Presbyterian church buildings in the United States Buildings and structures in Murfreesboro, Tennessee Churches in Rutherford County, Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Rutherford County, Tennessee Neoclassical church buildings in the United States {{Tennessee-Presbyterian-church-stub