We study the nature of the ground state of a one-dimensional electron-phonon model for molecular crystals: The phonons are assumed dispersionless and couple to the local electronic density. We consider the half-filled-band sector and discuss the stability of the Peierls-dimerized ground state as a function of the phonon frequency ($\ensuremath{\omega}$), electron-phonon coupling constant ($\ensuremath{\lambda}$), and number of components of the electron spin ($n$). First, we discuss the properties of the model in the limiting cases of zero frequency and infinite frequency. We then perform a strong coupling expansion which maps the system onto a spinless fermion model with nearest-neighbor repulsion for both spinless and spin-\textonehalf{} electrons, but with different parameters in both cases. Finally, we perform a numerical study of the system using a Monte Carlo technique. We study the behavior of the order parameter and of correlation functions for various points in parameter space. We also perform a finite-size---scaling analysis of the numerical data. The conclusions of our study are the following: For the case of spinless electrons, there exists always a disordered phase for small coupling constant, and the system undergoes an infinite-order transition to a Peierls-dimerized state as the coupling constant increases beyond a critical value. The phase diagram is divided between a disordered and an ordered region by a line that connects the points ($\ensuremath{\omega}=0$, $\ensuremath{\lambda}=0$) and ($\ensuremath{\omega}=\ensuremath{\infty}$, $\ensuremath{\lambda}=\ensuremath{\infty}$). For the case of spin-\textonehalf{} electrons, the system is dimerized for arbitrary $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ and $\ensuremath{\omega}$ except in the limit $\ensuremath{\omega}=\ensuremath{\infty}$.