A significant part of any community’s history, churches are often one of the first buildings erected when a new area is settled.
The same is true for Oklahoma, and many of these historical buildings are still standing today.
Here are five of Oklahoma’s oldest churches, their histories and where you can find them.
Wheelock Church
Wheelock Church, built in 1842, is pictured in this undated photo by Alvin Rucker. The church was home to a Choctaw Presbyterian congregation that was forcibly removed to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears, and is considered the oldest church still standing in Oklahoma.
Considered the oldest church still standing in Oklahoma, Wheelock Church was built in 1846, just east of where State Highway 98 and U.S. 70 intersect near Millerton, Oklahoma. Built by a Choctaw Presbyterian congregation, which arrived in Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears in 1833, the building replaced a log building first built by the group at the direction of missionary the Rev. Alfred Wright, according to the Choctaw Nation newspaper Biskinik.
The one-story building was constructed in a simplified Greek-revival style and local, hand-carved stone make up its 20-inch-thick walls. The roof, steeple and interior finishes were replaced in 1882, and metal roofing has since been added. But the building largely appears the same as it did when it was built 178 years ago.
Though no longer a meeting place for a congregation — the building has changed hands several times over the years, and was donated in 2023 to the Choctaw Nation by the Wheelock Cemetery Association — it offers a look into the Choctaw Nation’s past.
“It is a place where people can go to connect with the first generation of Christian Choctaws in Oklahoma,” reads a Choctaw Nation Tribal Council bill accepting the donation of the church building.
The church is adjacent to the Wheelock Academy, a boarding school for youths that operated from 1832 to 1955. Tours of the Academy museum and grounds are available upon request.
Old Baptist Mission Church
The Old Baptist Mission Church is pictured in a 1975 Oklahoma Historical Society photo. The church was built in 1888 for a Cherokee Baptist congregation and is located north of Westville, Oklahoma, off of U.S. 59 on Old Mission Mountain Road.
Just north of Westville, Oklahoma, off of U.S. 59 on Old Mission Mountain Road sits the Old Baptist Mission Church, built in 1888 at the site of the mission and church established in the early 1840s.
The church was established by Baptist missionary Evan Jones for a group of Cherokee people who had been forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands. Jones traveled with the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, according to the Cherokee Phoenix.
The original brick church building was destroyed in the Civil War, and the wood-framed building still standing today was built thanks to a $615 loan from the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York.
A sign atop the front doors, which still welcomes church members into the sanctuary each Sunday, notes that the original Cherokee congregation traveled to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears during 1838 and 1839.
St. Joseph Old Cathedral
St. Joseph Old Cathedral is pictured March 18 in Oklahoma City.
Directly across from the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum stands St. Joseph Old Cathedral, home to a Catholic congregation that arrived in Oklahoma Territory in 1889.
As the congregation grew, the building was dedicated in 1904 and became the first cathedral in Oklahoma when Pope Pius X raised the Vicariate of the Oklahoma Territory to a diocese in 1905.
While the church has endured for more than a century, the building experienced significant damage in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The church was closed for almost two years during restoration and reopened Dec. 1, 1996.
Visitors to the Oklahoma City memorial often visit the cathedral at 307 NW 4, or attend its Mass services, which are held at noon on weekdays, at 4 p.m. Saturday, and at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon (en Espanol) and 4 p.m. Sunday.
First Christian Church, now Frontline Church OKC
Built in 1911, the ornate limestone building stands out on the edge of Automobile Alley where it is now home to the Frontline Church’s downtown congregation.
The congregation of Oklahoma City’s First Christian Church was the first to call it home, however, in those early years after statehood.
The building at 1104 N Robinson was deemed historically significant thanks to its Neo-Classical Revival architectural style, and is the best example of an ecclesiastical building in that style in Oklahoma City, according to the application to place it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Calvary Baptist Church
Once a beacon and haven for Oklahoma City’s Black community, both during and after the civil rights sit-in movement, Calvary Baptist Church is now home to the Dan Davis Law Firm.
Built in 1923, the three-story red-brick building sits on the corner of NE 2 and Walnut Avenue in downtown Oklahoma City, making it the perfect starting point for many days of sit-ins at downtown restaurants and businesses during the fight to desegregate. The original Calvary Baptist congregation’s founders moved to Oklahoma Territory from Tennessee in 1890 and met at three different locations before the current building was erected.
Office space surrounds the sanctuary at the Calvary Baptist Church building at the corner of NE 2 and Walnut Avenue, which now houses the Dan Davis Law Firm in Oklahoma City.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. applied to be the church’s pastor in 1953 but was turned down because of his young age, The Oklahoman reported previously. However, he returned to the church in 1960 for a Freedom Rally, three years before his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
Much of the building has been preserved or restored to its original condition, with the sanctuary separated by glass walls from the offices of law firm employees. The firm opens the doors to community events such as Christmas shows and Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: These are 5 of the oldest church buildings still standing in Oklahoma