Collegeport, on Tres Palacios Bay in Matagorda County, was planned by the Burton D. Hurd Land Company as a promotional scheme to sell the lands of J.E. and A.B. Pierce, with land provided for a townsite and for the Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts. In November 1909, community leaders met in the university chapel to create Collegeport Federated Church, bringing together fourteen denominations in an early effort to unify the community and support a common church for all citizens. Murray A. Travis, who had come from Canada to Collegeport in 1909 to join his brother William H. Travis and help develop university programs as dean, became the church's first pastor while also running the Collegeport Chronicle, one of the area's first newspapers. In 1910, the congregation began building its first sanctuary at an estimated cost of $2,000, and the five-room building opened for services on November 27, 1910. Its charter members included people from Baptist, Methodist, Union, Universal, and Presbyterian backgrounds, and for many years the church also served as a schoolhouse and community center. In 1922, the congregation voted unanimously to join the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., becoming the First Presbyterian Church of Collegeport, and it continued using the 1910 sanctuary until 1955, when new facilities were built with materials and furnishings from the original church.