First Presbyterian Church of West
West, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. D.C. Kinnard began the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1875. The first building on this site was erected in 1883. Walter Bennett Martin constructed the present building in 1901. Czechs organized a Presbyterian church in 1911 and held separate services in their own language. In 1921 the Cumberland Presbyterian Church became the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. The Czechs united with the congregation in 1953. St. Peter's United Church of Christ merged with fellowship in 1966 to form first United Church of West.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Rev. D. C. Kinnard began a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation here in 1875, and a first building rose in 1883, replaced by the present structure in 1901. In 1911 Czech immigrants organized their own Presbyterian church and worshipped separately in their native language, uniting with the congregation only in 1953. Further mergers, including St. Peter's United Church of Christ in 1966, drew several strands into the First United Church of West.
Why it matters
The church's blending of Anglo and Czech Presbyterians reflects the immigrant patchwork of Central Texas, where a single congregation could hold worship in two languages for decades.
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Related people
- · D. C. Kinnard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
West
West, TX
The town of West grew from a stagecoach stop, store, and post office that entrepreneur Thomas M. West established at the Bold Springs Settlement in the late 1860s. The arrival of the Katy Railroad in 1880 and the rise of cotton farming drew a wave of Czech and German immigrants, and by 1910 the community had swelled into a bustling town of some 2,000 people. Its Czech heritage still headlines the annual Westfest.
Groppe Building
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August Groppe, Sr., one of the first German settlers in the area, had this structure raised in 1892—the very year the town of West was incorporated. A prosperous cotton farmer and businessman, Groppe hired local brickmasons and used bricks made near West to build the first brick building in the town's business district. Over the following century the building housed a succession of enterprises, from dry goods store to grocery to drugstore.
Church of the Assumption
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When the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad pushed through central Texas around 1890, the Czech Catholic families of West gained enough numbers to petition their bishop for a church of their own, splitting from the older congregation at Martinville. Their 1892 sanctuary held Masses in Latin but also in Czech — a reminder that faith and mother tongue traveled together across the Atlantic. Fire destroyed the wooden church in 1903, but the congregation rebuilt in brick that same year, and again in 1956.
West Brethren Church
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Czech immigrants settling this corner of McLennan County in the 1870s at first worshiped with German neighbors at St. Peter's Evangelical Church until the Rev. Henry Juren began preaching in the Czech Moravian Brethren tradition, and the Rev. Adolph Chlumsky formally organized the West Brethren Church in 1892. He rode the railroad from Brenham to lead services, while a choir, youth groups, and the Christian Sisters society knit the congregation together. New buildings in 1896, 1920, and 1956 carried the church past its centennial.