African American churches have stood on this site in Apalachicola for more than 150 years and played a vital role in the community’s spiritual, educational, and economic growth. Newspaper reports suggest a local church for African Americans existed here as early as 1858, with the first services held in a nearby blacksmith’s shop. On April 16, 1866, the Stewards of the Methodist Episcopal Church purchased lots 1 and 2 on block 178 for the city’s first Black church, and soon afterward a small wooden building was erected that served as a place of worship for 74 years and also as a schoolhouse for Black children. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by Richard Allen and Abasalom Jones in 1816, was the first organization owned and operated by Blacks, and according to church records the Apalachicola congregation connected with it shortly after the Civil War, becoming St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church around 1870. In 1892 the congregation borrowed $890 from Cypress Lumber Company to build a larger wooden church, and by 1913 construction had begun on the current Gothic Revival brick building, which was completed in 1921 and featured stained-glass windows made in Germany. Surrounded at that time by a thriving African American community that included a Masonic Lodge on 6th Street, grocery stores, and oyster houses, the church remained a center of community life. Fires in 1951 and 1986 caused serious damage, but the community came together to fund repairs, and the church stands as the result of the Black community’s planning, cooperation, and commitment.