First Presbyterian Church of Mabank
Mabank, Kaufman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized on September 11, 1896, this church began as a small Cumberland Presbyterian congregation in the town of Lawndale (about 2 mi. E of the original Mabank townsite; now within its city limits). Worship services were held in the Lawndale Schoolhouse. In 1900, when the Texas and New Orleans Railroad was built through this area, the town of Mabank was created on the rail line. The citizens of Lawndale relocated to the new townsite. Baptists constructed the first church building in Mabank, which the Presbyterian congregation also used until 1903, when a frame sanctuary was completed under the leadership of the Rev. Newton P. Patterson. The name was changed to First Presbyterian Church, USA, of Mabank in 1904. During the depression of the 1930s the church experienced a period of inactivity. By the 1940s, however, the congregation was reorganized. The construction of a nearby lake in the 1960s brought economic revitalization and increased population to the area. The membership of First Presbyterian Church grew as a result, and the congregation called its first full-time pastor in 1977. It continues to serve the community with a variety of programs. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This congregation began in 1896 as a small Cumberland Presbyterian church in Lawndale, worshipping in the local schoolhouse. When the Texas and New Orleans Railroad came through in 1900 and created the town of Mabank on the line, Lawndale's citizens relocated, and the church moved with them, completing a frame sanctuary in 1903. Through a lean stretch in the Depression and a lakeside boom in the 1960s, the congregation endured and grew.
Why it matters
The church's move follows a classic American pattern, in which the railroad's route decided which towns lived, which died, and where communities rebuilt themselves.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Newton P. Patterson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Mabank
Mabank, TX
Organized in the closing years of the 1890s by nine charter members under a traveling Baptist missionary, this fellowship began as Lawndale Baptist Church a mile to the northeast. When the railroad reached the area in 1900, the congregation moved to the new townsite and became Mabank Baptist. Its early meetinghouse did triple duty—home to Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian worshippers and to the public school—before growing into successive larger sanctuaries.
Mabank
Mabank, TX
This Kaufman County land passed through many absentee owners in the 1840s and '50s — including Sam Houston — before John R. Jones platted the town of Lawndale in 1887. When the Texas & New Orleans Railroad bypassed Lawndale in 1900, ranchers Thomas H. Eubank and G. W. Mason set aside a square mile for a new town, blending their surnames into 'Mabank.' Merchants and families relocated to the rail line, and the 1966 opening of Cedar Creek Lake later reinforced the community.
Ham (Pauline)
Eustace, TX
Around 1900 a community grew up on land the Texas and New Orleans Railroad had bought from attorney Marshal Hamlet "Ham" Gossett, and the town took the name Ham in his honor. Farming and ranching drew settlers, and the town gained stores, a cotton gin, a cannery, a school, and a church. Renamed Pauline in 1912 after a postmaster's romantic gesture, the community faded through Depression hardship and typhoid outbreaks, and all but vanished after the tracks were pulled in 1976.
Goshen Cemetery
Eustace, TX
Established after the Civil War and named for the Biblical "land of milk and honey," Goshen served nearby farms as a marketing center and offered a rest stop to trail drivers moving cattle from East Texas. When the railroad bypassed it, merchants moved to Eustace on the new line, and the town faded. Local legend says the cemetery began with a wandering cowboy who sickened and died on a nearby ranch; the first documented burial, Benjamin G. Hooker, dates to 1869.