The following is an excerpt from "A Brief History of Auburn United Methodist Church" written by Carolyn Ellis Lipsocmb in 2001.
During the early 1830’s, the Reverend Morgan Turrentine was a circuit-riding Methodist minister who preached to the Indians and a few scattered white families in the vicinity we now know as East Alabama. He told his friend Judge John Harper of Harris County, Georgia about the mild climate, rich soil and abundant water in this beautiful area, and Judge Harper decided that this would be the perfect place to start the settlement that he had dreamed of.
In 1836 Judge Harper, with his family and some friends from Harris County, Georgia, settled in the area that would become Auburn. The thirty-four settlers, all Methodists, by the following year had built a log structure which served as the first church and also the first school in Auburn. This location on the corner of Gay Street and Magnolia Avenue is still the site for the Auburn Methodist Church.
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