First Presbyterian Church
Colorado City, Mitchell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On the second Sunday of January, 1881, The Rev. O.F. Rogers, a Presbyterian minister and school teacher from Mississippi, preached the first sermon ever heard in Colorado (City). The congregation met in a saloon, only large place in the tent town. The bar was covered with wagon sheets and after the sermon, a collection was taken for the minister. A dug-out, floored with corn sacks and equipped with boxes for seats, housed the first formal church, organized in May with 11 charter members. W.J. Miller was installed as elder and the church was placed under control of the Texas Central Presbytery. In a few weeks, a tent was erected to accommodate church services, Sunday school and public school. P.O. Coleman, prominent doctor and educator, and J.E. Riordan, banker, were then named elders. Later, church members worshipped in the newly built school house. The first permanent church building, located at Locust and Second Streets, was dedicated May 3, 1891. The first trustees were Dr. P.C. Coleman, W.J. Miller, William Kennedy, C.A. Arbuthnot and John Carlisle. The present church building was completed August 30, 1925, when The Rev. W.M. Elliott was Pastor. An education unit was added, 1957, under The Rev. Earl Clary, Pastor. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On a January Sunday in 1881, a Presbyterian minister preached the first sermon ever heard in the tent town of Colorado City — inside a saloon, its bar draped in wagon sheets, with a collection taken up afterward. From a dugout floored with corn sacks the congregation grew, moving through tents and schoolhouses to permanent brick sanctuaries.
Why it matters
The story captures how organized religion followed hard on the heels of the railroad into raw West Texas boomtowns, planting community roots in places barely a season old.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1881, the Texas and Pacific Railway was pushing west across the plains of West Texas, and towns sprang up along its path almost overnight. Colorado City, on the Colorado River in what is now Mitchell County, was one of them. Early on it was literally a tent town, with a population of railroad workers, cattlemen, merchants, gamblers and buffalo hunters in the last years of the great herds.
The region was changing fast. Only a few years before, the southern plains had been dominated by the Comanche and by vast buffalo herds. By the early 1880s, the herds were nearly gone, the Comanche had been confined to reservations, and ranchers and the railroad were claiming the land. Towns like Colorado City became supply points and shipping centers for the new cattle country.
Boomtowns were rough places at first, where the saloon often came before the schoolhouse or the church. Building those civic institutions was one way the settlers tried to make a camp into a community.
People & events
On the second Sunday of January 1881, the Rev. O.F. Rogers, a Presbyterian minister and schoolteacher from Mississippi, preached what the marker calls the first sermon ever heard in Colorado City. The only space big enough for a crowd was a saloon. The bar was covered with wagon sheets for the occasion, and afterward a collection was taken for the preacher. The contrast between the sacred and the rowdy was about as sharp as the frontier offered.
By May the congregation was formally organized, with eleven charter members meeting in a dugout floored with corn sacks and furnished with boxes for seats. W.J. Miller was installed as elder, and the church came under the Texas Central Presbytery. Within weeks a tent went up for worship, Sunday school and the public school. The town's religious and educational lives began together under one canvas roof. A doctor and educator named Coleman and a banker, J.E. Riordan, soon joined the elders.
The congregation then worshipped in the new schoolhouse and in 1891 dedicated its first permanent building, at Locust and Second Streets. A new church was finished in 1925 under the Rev. W.M. Elliott, and an education building was added in 1957 under the Rev. Earl Clary. The church grew from a saloon floor to a permanent sanctuary, and it grew along with the town.
Its place in the American story
This story is a small, vivid chapter in a pattern that repeated across the American West: churches followed quickly on the heels of the railroad. Wherever the tracks brought new towns, congregations from many denominations organized, often in tents, homes or borrowed spaces, long before they could afford buildings of their own. For settlers, founding a church was a statement that a place was meant to last.
The early mixing of church and school is part of that pattern too. On the frontier, ministers were often teachers, and the same tent or building might serve worship on Sunday and lessons during the week. Churches were among the first institutions to bring education, organization and a sense of civic life to raw towns.
The Colorado City congregation's journey, from a saloon to a dugout, then to a tent, a schoolhouse and finally a permanent church, sums up how the West was settled in a lasting way. Railroads and cattle brought the people. Institutions like this church helped them become communities.
If you visit
When you visit, look at the church as the latest chapter in a long story. The present building dates to 1925, with an addition from 1957, but the congregation's roots reach back to that saloon sermon of 1881. Try to picture the tent town around it: canvas, dust, wagons and the new railroad as the town's lifeline.
If the church is an active congregation, visit respectfully and enjoy the exterior from the street unless you are there for services. The marker tells the full origin story, so it makes a good starting point for exploring the older parts of Colorado City.
Colorado City is a natural stop on a drive across West Texas along the old Texas and Pacific route. The towns strung along the railroad all share this boomtown heritage. For families, the saloon-turned-sanctuary story makes a memorable way to explain how frontier towns grew up.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · O.F. Rogers
- · W.J. Miller
Themes & tags
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