Landmark Comes Down

KINGFISHER’S HISTORIC First United Methodist Church building, a Main and Broadway landmark since 1917, comes tumbling down Tuesday at the hands of a demolition crew. The church’s congregation, a fixture in Kingfisher since the Landrun of 1889 that first opened this area to settlement, relocated to a new building on South 13th Street. After an unsuccessful search for a buyer who could make use of the historic building, the prime corner lot was sold to a company which plans to build a Casey’s General Store, a convenience store franchise. Stained glass windows and other historic memorabilia that was not incorporated into the new church building was sold at an onsite auction earlier this year that attracted hundreds of current and former church congregants and other collectors who wanted to own a piece of the church’s heritage. SGA Design Group, which is building the convenience store, is still in the permitting process with the City of Kingfisher. A prospective construction timeline was not available at press time Tuesday. (TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photos by Jeremy Ingle]