Persuaded by reports of good land from the Reverend John Seybert, bishop of the Ohio Conference, the Jacob and David Rough families came to Portage Prairie from Pennsylvania in the spring of 1849. In 1851 they organized the Zion Evangelical Church. The denomination merged with the United Evangelical Church in 1922 and with the United Brethren Church in 1946, and the church was renamed the Portage Prairie United Methodist Church in 1968. In 1887 the Reverend J.A. Frye sparked a religious revival that inspired construction of the Gothic Revival church, embellished with oak details, which cost $7,200 and was debt-free upon its dedication. Its 100-foot steeple was removed in 1919 because of severe electrical storms. Evangelical pioneers had worshipped in a log schoolhouse until 1859, when they built a yellow brick church, and that structure was later replaced by the present church.