Helen Bradford compiled this manuscript from cited former histories of the church and articles from the local newspaper The Eureka Harold, founded in 1869. The detailed history begins with the founding of the Eureka Methodist Church in 1865 by Presiding Elder of the Baldwin District, C.R. Rice, which preceded the incorporation of the town of Eureka, Kansas by 5 years.

The church met in homes and businesses as the town grew from a 16-building settlement to the site of a $50,000 courthouse. In June of 1873 the three-year-old wooden Methodist church was destroyed in a tornado. The funds raised to rebuild were deposited in a Chicago bank that failed. By September the church had laid the cornerstone, of local stone, of a church that would take 6 more years to build.

Numerous fundraisers are recounted, including pound parties where a pound of unidentified goods was auctioned off, voting on the best-looking unmarried man and woman, art exhibitions of varying levels of seriousness, speakers and suppers. Donations were also made from public funds, and in 1875, to some controversy, the church started taking offerings at each service.

The menu of a Thanksgiving dinner is provided and mentions “Indian Bread, and Bread without the Indian” implying the cultural influence of and the denigration of Native Americans. Likewise, there is passing mention of African Americans in Eureka, saying that the Second Congregationalist “colored” church was established in 1881.

The first railroad, the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, came through Eureka in 1879, the same year that the stone church was completed. Six women broke kegs in local saloons and the Prohibition Amendment was passed by the Kansas Legislature later that year. The Missouri Pacific line reached Eureka in 1882, and in 1885, C.R. Rice returned to preach at the church of his founding.

The history is followed by a timeline of improvements to the church building and organ, dating from 1893 through 1978.