Our Beginning
The first service of the Methodist Church in Sheridan was preached on August 31, 1888. Rev E. B. Vosseller organized the First Methodist Episcopal Church on December 23, 1888. The present church building was built between 1921 and 1923.
We are grateful for the dedication, vision, and faithfulness of all the United Methodists of Sheridan who have gone before us. The church has served God and His people for several generations. ~Rose Hill-Historian
Mortgage Burning 1939
On September 13, 1939, the First Quarterly Conference voted to retire the final $4,465 of building debt by Thanksgiving and set the mortgage burning for 4 pm on Sunday, December 17, 1939.
Individuals borrowed on life insurance and when the Ladies’ Aid could not raise the last $100 of their pledge, the president borrowed it on her signature.
The joyful program consisted of 2 anthems, messages from various groups within the church, and the Rev. Oliver Reed for the Sheridan Ministerial Alliance. Rev. Hardesty’s message was titled “The Church Looks Ahead.”
FUMC: A Century and a Quarter in Sheridan
On August 31, 2013, we celebrate the 125th anniversary of the first Methodist service in Sheridan, Aug. 31, 1888. Remember 1888 was only 23 years after Custer’s disaster on the Little Big Horn and more than two years before Wounded Knee.
Action by the General Conference enabled the Colorado Conference to organize the Wyoming Mission Conference in July 1888, which appointed Daniel Leeper Rader as district superintendent. Rader immediately set out from Cheyenne to survey his vast charge.
He came into the dusty little Sheridan community, which he called a “very nice village,” made arrangements for services in the schoolhouse and spread the word. For Sunday’s 11 am service, 17 people showed up. Do not tell Pastor Don that Rader spoke for 65 minutes. Rader adds “I had not preached so long for years. The people were so quiet I did not notice the flight of time.”
Rader says he preached to a “crowded house” in the evening and “at the close of the sermon the people…asked that a minister of the Methodist church be sent to them.”
by Rose Hill-Historian