First Presbyterian Church (Corpus Christi, Texas)

[1] While there was an attempt to organize a Presbyterian Church in Corpus Christi as early as 1859, that congregation appears to have disbanded during the Civil War.

[2] Construction materials were purchased for a building, but the yellow fever epidemic in the summer of 1867, which killed one-fifth of the city's population, stopped the work before it could start.

By the time the epidemic was over the church had lost its minister and his infant grandson, Dr. Merriman, two members of the Pollan family, and the young son of Perry and Rachel Doddridge, their only child.

Caldwell, wrote, “This was done out of no unkind feeling to our northern brethren, but out of regard for the interests of Christ’s cause, as connected with the people here.” By 1875 the membership grew to fifty.

Corpus Christi was Howerton's first pastorate and he went on to serve as moderator of the General Assembly and as a professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Washington and Lee University.

Following the disastrous hurricane and tidal wave of 1919, the Red Brick Church served as shelter and sustenance for the city.

In 1928, the Red Brick church on North Broadway was sold and a tabernacle was erected on the Doddridge estate as a place of worship while the present sanctuary was constructed during the pastorate of Dr. Charlton Storey.

Dr. Storey, who had accepted a call the previous September to a church in North Carolina, returned to preach for the dedication.

Payne Studios of New Jersey was anxious to keep their artisans employed during the Depression and so the church was able to purchase the windows “at unbelievably attractive prices.”[8] Today the three-story Doddridge building, a memorial to the Doddridge family, houses the church's offices, choir facilities, library, chapel, children's Sunday School rooms, and dorms for visiting mission groups.