First United Methodist Church of Ferris
Ferris, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The town of Ferris was laid out by the Houston & Texas Central Railway in 1874. In that year, the Reverend John S. Davis and the Reverend George W. Owens became the first of a series of circuit-riding ministers to serve Ferris, establishing a small body of the Methodist congregants. In 1885 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, received the donation of two town lots from the railroad, on which the church erected its first building. A parsonage was erected in 1895. Circuit riders continued to serve the Ferris congregation until the late 1890s. Ferris became a part of the Waxahachie District, Northwest Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1899. Ferris boasted a population of 311 at the beginning of the 20th century. A post office, railroad depot, express office, about 20 business and mercantile establishments, cotton gins, hotels, a school for children from primary grades through high school and several churches were among the town's features. In 1910, the Ferris church and the rest of the Waxahachie District became part of the newly-formed Central Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. New facilities were erected as needed. For much of 1924 the congregation met at Ferris High School and in the First Presbyterian Church. In 1925 the Presbyterian congregation met in the new Methodist facilities in anticipation of the completion of their new structure. A more modern facility was constructed for the Methodists in 1964. The congregation continues a strong tradition of worship, community outreach and service and mission programs. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Houston & Texas Central Railway laid out Ferris in 1874, and that same year circuit-riding ministers John S. Davis and George W. Owens began gathering Methodists in the new rail town. The railroad donated lots in 1885 for a first church, and as Ferris grew into a cotton-ginning town of shops, depot, and schools, the congregation moved through successive conferences and buildings, sharing space with Presbyterians in the 1920s. A modern sanctuary followed in 1964.
Why it matters
The church's rise alongside the depot shows how the railroad both created Texas towns and seeded the congregations that held them together.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Ferris exists because of the railroad. In 1874 the Houston & Texas Central Railway laid out the town, and that single decision — where to put a line and a depot — conjured a community out of the North Texas prairie. Towns like Ferris were, in a very literal sense, products of the rails: the survey came first, and the settlers followed the tracks.
This was the Reconstruction and Gilded Age era, when railroad expansion was remaking the map of Texas and the wider country. A depot meant that cotton could move to market and goods could come in, and around that promise grew a working town. By the turn of the twentieth century Ferris counted 311 residents and boasted a post office, a railroad depot, an express office, some twenty businesses and mercantile establishments, cotton gins, hotels, and a school running from the primary grades through high school.
Into that raw new town rode the circuit-riding preachers — a distinctly frontier institution, ministers who traveled a circuit of settlements too small to support a full-time pastor, carrying religion to communities the railroads had only just created.
People & events
The congregation's story begins in the town's founding year. In 1874 the Reverend John S. Davis and the Reverend George W. Owens became the first of a series of circuit riders to serve Ferris, gathering a small body of Methodist congregants in a town that barely existed yet. For more than two decades, until the late 1890s, these traveling ministers kept the faith alive.
The railroad that made the town also helped make the church: in 1885 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, received two town lots donated by the railroad and erected its first building on them. A parsonage followed in 1895, and the congregation steadily put down permanent roots, joining the Waxahachie District of the Northwest Texas Conference in 1899 and, in 1910, the newly formed Central Texas Conference.
One of the warmest chapters is neighborly. For much of 1924 the Methodists worshiped at Ferris High School and in the First Presbyterian Church while their own arrangements were in flux; then in 1925 the Presbyterians returned the favor, meeting in the new Methodist facilities while awaiting their own building. New facilities were raised as the town needed them, culminating in a more modern sanctuary in 1964 — and the congregation has carried its tradition of worship, outreach, and mission forward ever since.
Its place in the American story
Ferris is a textbook example of one of the great engines of American town-building: the railroad town. In the late nineteenth century, rail companies didn't just connect existing places — they created new ones, platting townsites along their lines and selling the lots. The story of the depot, the twenty businesses, the cotton gins, and the growing population is the story of how the rails settled the American interior.
The church's founding by circuit riders links Ferris to an equally national tradition. The Methodist circuit rider — preaching in schoolhouses and borrowed rooms, riding from settlement to settlement — was one of the primary ways religion reached the moving American frontier. That the railroad donated the very lots the first church stood on captures the intertwining of commerce and faith on that frontier.
And the neighborly sharing of buildings between Methodists and Presbyterians in 1924–25 reflects something enduringly American about small-town religious life: congregations that competed for souls also cooperated as neighbors, lending each other their sanctuaries when times required it.
If you visit
Come with the map in mind. Ferris was laid out along the railroad, and if you stand near the church and think about where the tracks and the old depot ran, you can still feel the logic of a town organized around the line. The relationship between rails and community is the key that unlocks the whole place.
The congregation you're visiting has moved through several buildings over its long life, the most modern raised in 1964, so look at the site as a chapter in a much longer story rather than a single frozen monument. Picture the first small building on the railroad-donated lots, the 1895 parsonage, and the traveling preachers who came before any of it.
Ferris sits within easy reach of the other historic communities of Ellis County, and this church pairs naturally with a broader ramble through the county's railroad-and-cotton towns. Take a moment to appreciate how a working farm town kept its faith and its neighborliness intact across a century and a half — including the year it shared a roof with the Presbyterians down the street.
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
- · John S. Davis
- · George W. Owens
Themes & tags
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