Settlers from Ripon, Wisconsin, established Park City in 1882 just ahead of the railroad, and within its first year the pious community organized a Christian club and Sabbath School. Traveling ministers originally served the town, including Methodist circuit rider “Brother Van” William Wesley Van Orsdel, who was reputed to have delivered his first sermon there in the saloon after the bartender covered the bar and liquor display with canvas and made pews from planks laid across beer kegs. The Dunn & Babcock store and the school also hosted religious services. In 1897, residents formed a building committee to raise money for a permanent house of worship, while Mrs. F. W. Lee and Miss Etha Peck solicited subscriptions in the valley and the Church Extension Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church contributed funds. Although the congregation first imagined a log church, local stonemason Manley Downs persuaded the trustees that local stone would cost no more than cutting logs. Masons assembled the irregular sandstone with the aid of a gentle draft horse that powered the hoist lifting each stone into place. Dedicated in June 1898, the simple yet stately sandstone church, with tall narrow pointed-arched windows, an arched doorway, stone construction, and a hipped-roof bell tower echoing the ecclesiastical architecture of larger communities, continues to serve Park City.