PROSPER, Texas — The congregation at the First Presbyterian Church met virtually last weekend and will likely have to do so for quite a few weekends to come after a massive fire left their historic building unusable this month.

On Aug. 2, an early afternoon fire raged through the interior of the Prosper church, about 40 minutes north of Dallas. Church leaders say that investigators point to a few electrical wires starting the fire in the heat of the day; a fire that would eventually go 3 alarm and require help from several nearby fire departments to put out.

The church’s pastor, John Fowler, looked through the rows of burnt pews and singed carpeting this week where many of the worship items and artifacts his congregation holds close, now lay destroyed.

“Definitely, definitely a sad day,” said Fowler.

The loss in the church ranges from simply costly to irreplaceable, as some of what’s inside the small building has been there far longer than Fowler’s 20 year tenure as pastor.

“1873,” said Fowler, recalling the year the church’s early founders began their establishment. “We’ve been a congregation longer than Wyoming and 10 other states have been members of the Union.”

According to the state historic marker outside of the church, the building itself was constructed in 1892 in a neighboring community and moved to its current location in Prosper in 1902; the congregation itself existing in some form since nearly the Civil War.

Some things are certain to be lost for good in that old church. Fowler said insurance adjusters and engineers are still determining the total losses in everything and that includes how much of the building will be salvageable.

Fowler hoped that the bulk of the damage in the interior and the actual brick structure will remain, but only time will tell.

However, church leaders say more historic even than their building is their congregation, and though their numbers are much smaller than they once were, they don’t intend to see that go away soon.

“You gotta try harder than this to knock us out,” said Fowler.