The Richards family played a long role in building churches in Northwest Florida. Daniel Thomas Richards (1825-1879), a survivor of an Indian attack on Fort Richards/Fort Place and the son of Rev. John G. Richards of Wewahitchka, built Moss Hill Methodist Church in Vernon in 1857, built Chipola Primitive Baptist in 1873, and organized Chipola Methodist Church in his log home in 1874. In 1876, Daniel and his sons built a log church near this site. In 1899, Daniel's son Martin L. Richards purchased land and platted the town. Martin Lafayette Richards (1866-1947) and his wife, Lula Mozelle Cannon Richards (1875-1956), who named Altha and served as its first postmistress, granted this church site on August 23, 1907, to J.F. Richards, B. M. Stanfill, and I. H. King as trustees of the Blountstown Circuit Methodist Episcopal Church South, of the Marianna District Alabama Conference, and their successors in office, so the property would be used, kept, and maintained as a place of divine worship for the ministry and membership. A white wood frame church was built here in 1908, where the congregation met until a new church was built in 1974. Martin L. Richards served as the first Sunday School Superintendent until 1945.