First Methodist Church of Longview
Longview, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This congregation traces its history to 1845, when a one-room log meeting house was erected nearby for a church, school and town hall. The church was served by circuit-riding ministers until 1850. The congregation moved to Earpville on the Stagecoach Road in 1860 and moved their church building to Longview in 1874 after the arrival of the railroad. the church has grown steadily over the years and has erected several new buildings to serve its members and expanding programs. The church continues to serve the area as it has for more than 150 years. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This congregation dates to 1845, when a one-room log building served the community as church, school, and town hall, tended by circuit-riding ministers until 1850. Following the paths of trade and travel, the congregation moved to Earpville on the stagecoach road in 1860 and then relocated its building to Longview in 1874 after the railroad arrived. It has served the area for more than a century and a half.
Why it matters
Its migrations from log meeting house to stagecoach town to railroad city chart the shifting geography of settlement in East Texas across the 19th century.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Early Teague Home
Longview, TX
This house is one of the few surviving structures of Earpville, the early settlement that grew into Longview, standing along William T. Brooks's stagecoach line running from Monroe, Louisiana, to Tyler, Texas. Built before 1882 and bought that year by Alabama natives Latimus and Mary Teague, it became a schoolhouse in 1890 when their daughters Molly and Sarah taught classes and music here until the school moved in 1905.
Liberty City
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This rural Gregg County community was settled before the Civil War and carried a string of colorful names — Sabine, Mount Moriah, McCrary's Chapel, Goforth, and Hog Eye, the last for a settler with a keen eye for hogs. It took the name Liberty City in the opening days of the fabled East Texas oil boom, which transformed the county's economy. The area built its reputation on good schools, farming, ranching, and an admired network of all-weather county roads.
O. H. Methvin, Sr., Founder of Longview
Longview, TX
O. H. Methvin (1815–1882) came to Texas from Georgia around 1848 and bought some 1,200 acres of East Texas, including a cornfield on this site. In 1870 he deeded 100 acres to the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the town that grew along the line was named Longview for the sweeping view surveyors admired from nearby Rock Hill. When Gregg County formed in 1873, Longview became its county seat, a city born from one landowner's gift to the railroad.
First Presbyterian Church of Longview
Longview, TX
Nine charter members of the Old School Southern Presbyterian Church organized this congregation in 1872 as a mission in the brand-new railroad town of Longview. The Texas and Pacific Railroad donated the land for its first building in 1874, and the Rev. James H. Wiggins became its first full-time pastor. The church planted two more mission congregations in the area within two decades.