First Christian Church was founded in 1891, the same year Chandler itself came to be. The town was settled in its own land run on September 28, 1891, when thousands of settlers raced for lots on a bare Lincoln County hilltop. Our congregation took root in those first raw days, part of a community building itself out of nothing.
Just six years later, on March 30, 1897, a half-mile-wide tornado tore through Chandler and nearly erased it. At least fourteen people were killed and almost every building in town was destroyed. Chandler did not give up. The town and its churches rebuilt, this time in brick and stone, determined to stay.
When Route 66 was commissioned in 1926, it ran straight through the heart of Chandler. Two years later, in 1928, the congregation moved into the brick sanctuary at 614 Manvel Avenue, on the new highway, where we still worship today. Through the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression of the 1930s, when Oklahoma families lost farms and many left the state for good, this church held on. Faith, and each other, was often all people had.
Generations of Chandler families have called FCC home, and many still do. [Add a specific story here: a longtime family, a tradition, or a moment that captures who FCC is.] In 2028 we will mark 100 years in this sanctuary, more than 130 years after the land run that started it all, still rooted here and still growing.