The First Methodist Episcopal congregation began building this church in 1869 to replace an earlier church built in 1843. The parsonage was completed in 1886 and the congregation dedicated the completed church in 1887. It is Monroe's finest late-Gothic Revival building, a European-inspired style popularized in America as ecclesiastical. The church's steep roof, tall and narrow pointed-arch windows, and elaborate window tracery are stylistic hallmarks, and the rose window on the front facade, composed of tear-shaped stained glass panels, is its most striking feature. Its decorative brickwork and angled corner tower are hallmarks of its architect, Edward Townsend Mix. Mix, born in Connecticut in 1831, trained in the New Haven office of church architect Sidney Mason Stone and moved to Milwaukee in 1856. He practiced independently from 1857 to 1881 and in his own firm, Mix and Co., from 1881 to 1890, and served as Wisconsin's State Architect from 1864 to 1867. Widely known throughout the Midwest, he designed many prominent Milwaukee buildings, including the Plankinton House Hotel, Jason Downer Residence, Immanuel Presbyterian, the Mitchell Building, the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul depot. The non-profit Monroe Arts Center, formed to purchase the building, took ownership in 1976 and opened it to the community with performances and exhibitions.