In May 1915, Reverend William Troutman and seven founders established the First United Methodist Church of Okeechobee, originally the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Its first building, a one-story wood structure completed in 1916 on land donated by the Okeechobee Company, a Henry Flagler company, was the first church building in the city. In 1921, that building was moved to an adjoining lot to make way for a brick church whose plans were approved the same year, and seed money for construction was raised by a William Jennings Bryan lecture before the building was completed debt free in 1924. The brick church includes replacement stained glass windows set in original rose window frames and a Reuter pipe organ installed in 1944. The original wood building served as the parsonage until 1969, then as the Heart & Hand Mission and a youth building until its demolition in 1979. The church has served the community by hosting Okeechobee High School graduations, numerous weddings, funerals, music programs, and other events, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015 during the centennial of Okeechobee's first church building.