Fannin Street United Methodist Church
Goliad, Goliad County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Fannin Street United Methodist Church began in 1872. One of the earliest African American churches in Goliad County, it was founded after emancipation when many former slaves who previously worshipped with their owners established their own churches. Originally known as the Methodist Episcopal Church, the name changed to Fannin Street United Methodist in 1968. Built in the traditional style of small country churches, Fannin Street United Methodist Church has a steeply gabled roof and a cupola with four openings. The bell was made by the Cincinnati Bell Foundry. The church experienced several disasters including a hurricane in 1886 at its first site at Horseshoe Bend, but the tornado that struck here on May 18, 1902 destroyed the church and killed fifty parishioners. A marker was erected at the Lott Cemetery in honor of those buried there. The church was rebuilt in 1903 and later improvements included a pastor’s study, choir room, gallery and fellowship hall. A third disaster hit the church on Sept. 13, 1976 when lightning destroyed the steeple, leaving only the mark of a cross. The bell was unable to be replaced and was mounted in front of the church. The church has been involved in community life that included baptisms in Coleto Creek, the anniversary of the church, and the singing rally held at different community churches. Although these activities ended in the 1970s, the church continues to operate a booth at Goliad Market Days and hold worship services at the La Bahia nursing home. The church survived many setbacks but the congregation endures and exemplifies the phrase, “the church is not the building; it’s the people.”
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1872, Fannin Street United Methodist Church was one of the earliest African American congregations in Goliad County, established after emancipation as freedpeople who had worshiped alongside their enslavers formed churches of their own. The small country church—steeply gabled with a four-sided cupola and a Cincinnati-cast bell—weathered a string of catastrophes, most terribly the 1902 tornado that destroyed the building and killed fifty parishioners. Rebuilt in 1903 and struck again by lightning in 1976, the congregation endured, living out its motto that "the church is not the building; it's the people."
Why it matters
The church embodies the surge of independent Black religious life that followed emancipation, when self-governed congregations became the foundation of African American community and freedom in the South.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Goliad tornado of May 18, 1902
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Founding Site of First Baptist Church of Goliad
Goliad, TX
On this spot in May 1849, twelve Baptists gathered under an oak tree a block west of the Goliad square to organize the area's first Baptist church, led by the Rev. John Freeman Hillyer. The charter roll reflects the antebellum South it grew from: alongside the pastor's family and neighbors like the Leas and Crows were two enslaved people, Jacob and Eliza, counted among the founding members. The congregation joined the Colorado Baptist Association by 1852 and finally built a permanent home in 1899 after fifty years in borrowed rooms.
First United Methodist Church of Goliad
Goliad, TX
Organized in the 1840s when Goliad was a young frontier town, this Methodist congregation first worshipped in a private home alongside Presbyterians before raising its own building around 1852. By 1859 the Goliad Circuit claimed the largest membership in its conference, and Black and white members worshipped together until 1872, when Goliad's first African American church was organized. An F4 tornado leveled the building in 1902, and it was rebuilt from the salvaged wood to a Gothic design by Danish-born architect Jules Leffland.
Lott Cemetery
Goliad, TX
Acquired in 1896 and soon renamed for a local African American family, Lott Cemetery holds the graves of trail drivers, cattle-industry workers, and everyday families whose modest wooden crosses and sculpted obelisks trace the ups and downs of the local economy. When the 1902 tornado destroyed a nearby Methodist church and neighborhood, several dozen victims were buried in a communal grave along its eastern edge. Among those resting here are more than thirty veterans, two centenarians, and a man known only as "Bingo," raised by a prominent cattleman's wife.
Union Missionary Baptist Church
Fannin, TX
Union Missionary Baptist Church traces its beginnings to the 1880s among Baptists in Cologne, a freedmen's colony whose members are believed to have built their first church, St. John, along Perdido Creek in 1884. Known for a time as Mt. Carmel, the congregation split and then reunited in Fannin under the name Union Missionary after a storm damaged their building in the 1930s. Since restoring the Fannin church in 1950, members have worshiped in the same building, sustaining a community of faith for well over a century.