When it opened for sales in 1854, Florence was a rough-and-tumble place with a lot going on. Within a few years, several couple of church congregations were started, and nobody wanted to miss a seat in the busiest among them. This is the history of one of them, the Florence Methodist Church.

Pioneer Drama

When the Nebraska Territory was just dusty roads and pokey towns in 1856, Rev. Isaac F. Collins (1819-1862) was sent to Omaha from Arkansas, preaching in Florence, too. After getting a congregation regularly meeting, in May 1857, pioneer circuit rider Jacob Adriance was assigned with Florence. He organized a Methodist class and Sunday school in Florence. Adriance was a circuit rider who rode the Florence Circuit including settlements along the Missouri River with De Soto, Calhoun, and other tiny places outside of Florence.

The next year, the Kansas and Nebraska Conference assigned Jerome Spillman, a fiery young evangelist, to the Florence Circuit. In the next few months, the Florence Methodists took out loans to build a church for $4,500. Unfortunately, right after they opened, there was a huge financial crash that hit the region and the congregation wasn’t able to pay off its construction costs. Hiram Burch was assigned to the Florence Circuit in 1858, when it was renamed the De Soto Circuit because that congregation was bigger than Florence. After that, Florence was going through hard times and a lot of people moved away, and within months the Baptists and Presbyterians both closed their churches. The Methodists held on.

In 1859, the Florence congregation told the Omaha District of the Methodist Episcopal Church that they had more than $1,500 in debt and the interest was crushing them. Both the former pastor and the congregation’s trustees became individually and personally liable for the debt. That year, the main lender threatened the congregation with taking the physical church building from them, dismantling it, and sending it downriver to Omaha City. He thought he could reconstruct it as a store or warehouse. To save their building, the congregation begged the Kansas and Nebraska Conference to loan them money to save their building. Late that year, the congregation sold the building to become the first Florence School, which it was used for from Monday through Friday. However, church services were still held there on Sundays through the next year.

In 1860, the Methodists stopped meeting, too. There are scattered reports of preaching at the Florence Church in the next 50 years, but I have not been able to corroborate them with anything substantial.

Opening Again

Holding tent meetings in 1914, it was January 1915 when a new congregation incorporated as the Florence Methodist Episcopal Church. Contriving a plan to build a fancy new church, the members had an architect design a fancy brick structure. However, when money didn’t come through they scrapped those plans an instead bought another church to reuse.

In December of that year, their new building was dedicated. Originally built by Swedish Lutherans in Florence, it was moved to the northeast corner of Main Street and Mormon Street. The parsonage was located at 8111 North 30th Street.

Around 1921, something happened to the congregation and it stopped hosting a minister or meeting regularly. However, it was restarted in 1922 and continued. An announcement in the paper said, “The attendance since starting has been very encouraging, and the members hope to see it soon up to its former standard.”

In December 1927, Florence Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Hirst Memorial M.E. Church, which brought 30 new members to that congregation. In 1929, the congregation opened a new building called the Ames Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at 4023 Ames, which stayed open for 40 more years.

A Repurposed the Building

After it was closed in 1928, an Evangelical Lutheran Church started using the building for regular purposes. It burned down in a fire in 1959.

Today, there is no sign anywhere that the Florence Methodist Episcopal Church ever existed.

Special thanks to Mark Howard Schulze for inspiring this article!

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• MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE
  
• Basics: History | Banks | Newspapers | Churches
• Public Places: Florence Main Street | Florence High School | The Mormon Tree | Mormon Bridge | Florence Boulevard | River Drive | J.J. Pershing Drive and Monument | Potter’s Field | Post Office | US Army Corps of Engineers Facility
• Businesses: Florence Mill | Zestos | Florence Home | Florence Bank | Florence Mill | Florence Ferry | Florence Water Works | Florence Depot
• Houses: Parker Mansion | Brandeis Country Home | Lantry-Thompson Mansion | Mitchell House | Hunt Mansion
• Other Historic Places: Cutler’s Park | Winter Quarters | Vennelyst Park | Florence Building | Railroads & Streetcars | Forest Lawn | Florence Methodist Church
• People: James M. Parker | James Comey Mitchell | Florence Kilborn | Jacob Weber Sr. | Mayors
• Neighborhoods: Winter Quarters | Florence Field | Wyman Heights | High Point
• Mormon History Locations: Mormon Pioneer Memorial Bridge | Site of the Mormon Tree | Cutler’s Park | Brigham Young House | Mormon Mill
• Other: Directory of Florence Historic Places | ROCK BOTTOM: A History of Florence, Nebraska

MY ARTICLES ABOUT HISTORIC CHURCHES IN NORTH OMAHA
GENERAL: Directory | Black Churches | Florence Churches
METHODIST: 17th Street | 18th Street | Pearl Memorial | St. John’s AME | Bethel AME | Cleaves Temple | Ames Avenue | Trinity | Walnut Hill | 18th Street | Dundee Place | Florence
BAPTIST: Mount Moriah | Zion | Immanuel | Second | Rising Star | Paradise | Parkside | Morning Star
CATHOLIC: Holy Family | St. Benedict the Moor | St. John’s | Holy Angels | Sacred Heart | St. Cecilia | St. Therese
PRESBYTERIAN: Calvin Memorial | Hillside | First United | Covenant | St. Paul
EPISCOPALIAN: St. Phillips |
COGIC: New Bethel | Faith | Greater St. Paul
LUTHERAN: Hope | St. Paul | Mount Olive
OTHERS: Mt. Calvary |
RELATED: St. Clare’s Monastery | Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary | North Omaha Catholic Schools | Black Churches | Florence Churches | Kountze Place Churches

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