GraceWay, Pleasanton's first church, celebrated its 150th anniversary at a service on Sunday, Oct. 11, attended by dozens of longtime and newer members, former pastors and Mayor Jack Balch.
The congregation was organized in 1876 as First Presbyterian Church of Pleasanton, with 19 members, 18 years before Pleasanton became a city. Over the years it has worshipped in four buildings and gone by several names, among them Pleasanton Presbyterian and Centerpointe.
Senior Pastor Mary Woo, who has led the church since 2022, said about 160 to 200 people now attend each week, in person or online. "It takes something special to last this long," she said. Woo is the church's first female senior pastor and the first woman ordained in the ECO Bluewater Presbytery, which oversees member churches in California and Hawaii.
The church was one of 36 started by the Rev. William Wallace Brier, who founded congregations around the Bay Area and a few in Nevada. Its first home went up on Neal Street downtown, on lots bought for $350. The congregation later outgrew it, but the building still stands and has since been used by other churches, including Amador Valley Baptist Church and Lighthouse Baptist Church.
Woo told the congregation one test of a church's value is whether the town would miss it. "You'd miss the Balloon Platoon," she joked. The parade troupe, which has marched for more than 50 years, began with the KNBR Radio Good Times parade held in Pleasanton in 1974 and 1975. Its members wear sailor suits padded with inner tubes and carry mops, and they have marched as far away as London and Scotland.
Woo also recalled the church's role through wars, the Great Depression, recessions and the upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, when church leaders and young people met for open discussions she said were called "Talk Backs Under the Tree."
