In the late 1850s traveling pastors began conducting Methodist services in Elk Rapids and nearby communities, and First Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the early 1870s. Services were first held in a former school and then a former courthouse. After the Rev. John W. Hart became pastor in 1899, he concluded that the congregation needed a permanent building. In 1901 the congregation bought architectural plans by Philadelphia architects Benjamin D. Price and his son Max C. Price, who worked with the Methodist Episcopal Board of Church Extensions to design mail-order plans for small rural churches nationwide. The congregation bought land for its new building in August 1901, and construction on the auditorium-type church began on October 29, 1901, with a cornerstone-laying service. Its walls were built of locally made yellow brick, and the Kinsella Glass Company of Chicago produced eight of its thirteen Gothic stained-glass windows, which also served as memorials to early church members. The building and lot cost $8,250 in total. On August 10, 19202, the Reverend William Dawe of Detroit dedicated the church building. In 1971 the church was renamed First United Methodist Church, a name it kept until it closed in 2011. The building was then donated to the Elk Rapids Area Historical Society, which converted it into its headquarters and a history museum, and it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.