One of the oldest churches in Colorado and the first Protestant church established in Trinidad was founded by E. J. Rice, a pioneer Methodist preacher from Kansas, in October 1869. Its first edifice stood on what is now Courthouse Square facing Maple Street, a small adobe structure that, with subsequent improvements and additions, served the congregation until 1911, when this building was constructed. In 1872, Samuel Wesley De Busk organized a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Trinidad as the community’s second Protestant church. The Southern Methodists built their place of worship at 723 Arizona Street in 1881, and after Methodist Unification in 1939 became part of the total body of Methodists in Trinidad.