Blue Ridge Methodist Church
Blue Ridge, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The town of Blue Ridge was established in 1876. Four years later, the Rev. W. L. Fagg donated land for a Methodist Protestant Church. He served as the church's first pastor and was succeeded by the Rev. Martin Gentry. A tabernacle erected behind the church was used for summer revivals. In 1913 W. L. Fagg and his wife bought a tract of land on this site from M. L. and Goldie Fagg. The church building was moved here, closer to downtown, so that the congregation might grow with the community. The building survived a devastating 1919 tornado that tore through Blue Ridge. The church was expanded in 1923 with the purchase of adjoining property from C. D. and Hettie Fagg Manning. The Methodist Protestant Church joined with the older Methodist Episcopal Church of Blue Ridge, and became known as First Methodist Church. During the Depression Era, the church was unable to pay a minister. Members continued to hold Sunday School classes, support the Ladies' Aid Organization and attend summer revivals. Ten members formed a Missionary Society in the 1940s. They raised funds through quilting bees, holiday dinners, ice cream suppers and bazaars in order to pay the pastor's salary, conference fees and utility bills. The church thrived in the 1960s and 1970s. It joined the United Methodist Churches in the nearby communities of Trenton and Whitewright to form the Trinity Cooperative Parish. In 1976 the United Methodist Women and United Methodist Men programs were established, and plans for a new educational building began in 1977. The First United Methodist Church of Blue Ridge continues in the traditions of its founders with programs of worship and service. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1880 on land donated by the Rev. W. L. Fagg, this Methodist congregation grew alongside the young town of Blue Ridge, even moving its building closer to downtown so it might flourish. It survived a devastating 1919 tornado and weathered the Depression when it could not afford a pastor — its women raising the salary through quilting bees, ice cream suppers, and bazaars. In time it joined a cooperative parish and continues its work today.
Why it matters
The story shows how the unpaid labor of church women — sewing circles, suppers, and missionary societies — quite literally kept rural congregations alive through hard decades.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. W. L. Fagg
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bain-Honaker House
Farmersville, TX
Widowed young, Anna Melissa Hicks Bain built this Farmersville house in 1865 and raised five daughters here while running a shrewd real-estate and boarding business. She subdivided her land into lots, put up commercial buildings, and sold a parcel to the Red River Railroad, all while housing teachers and students from nearby schools. Five generations of the Bain-Honaker family lived under this roof before descendants gave it to the local historical society in 1989.
Copeville
Copeville, TX
Kentucky-born John Miles Cope settled in Collin County in 1848 and helped organize this farming community—first called Black Spot—in the 1850s, becoming its first postmaster in 1878. When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1886, the town shifted a mile northeast to trackside, becoming a shipping point for farm produce and prized bois d'arc timber. Copeville grew to about 300 residents and in 1921 gained one of the nation's early female postmasters, Elizabeth Pearce.
First Baptist Church of Josephine
Josephine, TX
In 1888, Sam and Mrs. Tarrant gathered local families at the Reed's Chapel schoolhouse to organize a Baptist congregation under first pastor W.M. Wolfe, and a summer brush-arbor revival quickly added 27 members. The church grew from a wooden sanctuary around 1890 to a three-story brick building in 1911 and a modern sanctuary in 1964, its dirt-floor tabernacle hosting two-week revivals with organist Ella Smith serving for more than seventy years. When the town school was rebuilt in 1936–37, the church even sheltered its high school classes.
First Baptist Church of Garland
Garland, TX
Baptists in the pioneer Duck Creek community met in a log schoolhouse before formally organizing Antioch Baptist Church in 1868 with sixteen members. A Ladies' Aid Society, organized in 1883, worked to sustain the church as it moved into the booming new town of Garland in 1890. Through an amicable split and reunion, new buildings, and steady growth, it took the name First Baptist Church of Garland in 1946 and went on to help establish nineteen missions.