Captain Waller of Selma built Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church in the 1820s after realizing that no house of worship existed in the area. Having moved there for the timber business, he also built the county's first sawmill on the banks of the creek that now bears his name. The church has stood for over 200 years. During remodeling in 1890, the balcony where enslaved people had sat for services was removed and a vaulted ceiling replaced the flat roof. In 1945, stained glass windows were added. The building has been home to Methodists and Baptists and also served as a Reconstruction-era school where Captain Waller's daughter, Marie Waller, taught. Although repaired many times, it retains its original foundation and Greek Revival style, and its wooden pegs, which according to local history Captain Waller carved and pounded in, still hold it together. Since regular services ceased in the 1960s, the building has served as the home of the Mt. Pleasant Historical Preservation Society. The Mt. Pleasant community, listed on William Bartram's 1775 travel route, is older than the state of Alabama and was once quite prosperous, with more than ten doctors and dentists, several businesses and stores, Alabama Apiaries shipping Italian bees to northern states in the early 20th century, and a timber economy supported by logging trains, camps, boarding houses, family farms, and steamboat transportation for goods and cash crops. Many families centered their lives around two churches, and education was important there: besides the Reconstruction-era school in the Methodist church, six other schools were located in the community, and the church's old wooden pews still bear schoolchildren's carvings. In 1914, John T. Mitchell was appointed postmaster and named the new post office Eliska for his young daughter. Today, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church stands on the former site of the Eliska post office, across the road from Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church.