Center Point United Methodist Church
Center Point, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1852, before there was a town here, Mrs. Henrietta Rees and her children came from Tennessee. Soon, she arranged for Methodist circuit riders to come to this area. One acre was bought for a church in 1872 from W. G. ("Gabe") Cocke and his wife Vanilla. About 1876 the Rev. W. E. Pafford and Turley Cocke built a church house. This site was purchased in 1883 from James Sellers. After a storm destroyed the first building under construction, a second was erected. This third structure was completed in 1911 by the men of the congregation. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Methodism reached this Hill Country spot before the town did: in 1852 Mrs. Henrietta Rees arrived from Tennessee and arranged for circuit riders to preach in the area. A congregation bought land in 1872, built an early church house around 1876, and after a storm toppled one building under construction, the men of the congregation completed the present structure in 1911. The church's story runs parallel to the founding of Center Point itself.
Why it matters
The congregation shows how itinerant circuit riders planted enduring institutions on the Texas frontier, often ahead of the towns that grew up around them.
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Related people
- · Henrietta Rees
- · W. E. Pafford
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Center Point Christian Church
Center Point, TX
Founded in 1879 by traveling Kentucky minister Green L. Surber, this Disciples of Christ congregation grew alongside the frontier settlement of Center Point during a broader campaign to strengthen faith across a growing Texas. After the first building burned in 1888, the community rebuilt in 1892 with materials hauled from San Antonio and Kerrville. In the 1920s its members helped establish the Guadalupe River retreat known as Camp Christian, later shared with a Jewish youth camp and other groups.
Woolls Building
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Built of limestone in 1873–75 by stonemason Sam H. Wellborn, the Woolls Building housed George W. Woolls's mercantile business and is one of Center Point's oldest surviving commercial structures. Its full-width balcony and exterior staircase led to an upper floor where fraternal groups gathered, including a Masonic lodge that counted several Texas Rangers among its members. For most of its life the ground floor kept up the town's retail trade.
Rising Star Lodge No. 429, A.F. & A.M.
Center Point, TX
Chartered in 1875, this Hill Country Masonic lodge lost its first home, along with all its records, to a fire in 1900. For decades afterward its members met in the local bank building before moving to the present site in 1964. Its founding charter carried the names of fifteen early settlers of the Center Point area, including Joshua D. Brown, an early figure in the settlement of Kerr County.
Center Point Cemetery
Center Point, TX
The land around Center Point drew its first settlers in the 1850s, including Dr. Charles Ganahl, who named the early community Zanzenberg after his Austrian hometown before it became Center Point in 1872. That same year land was set aside here for a church and cemetery, which grew over the decades to more than five acres and some 1,452 graves. Among the pioneers and community leaders buried here rest 32 Texas Rangers, an unusually dense gathering of the frontier lawmen.