First United Methodist Church of Junction
Junction, Kimble County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early Junction residents built brush arbors for religious meetings, and by the 1870s, the city had an active Methodist Society, which hosted traveling ministers, such as the fiery "Fighting Parson" Andrew Jackson Potter. The Junction Methodists became a mission church of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1881. Members built a sanctuary and parsonage in 1889, and the congregation continued to grow. Gov. Coke R. Stevenson, who grew up in the congregation, served on the building committee for the church's 1930 Spanish mission-style sanctuary. Today, the church continues to be a center for worship, education and community activity. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Early Junction worshippers gathered under brush arbors, and by the 1870s an active Methodist Society hosted circuit-riding preachers like the famously combative 'Fighting Parson' Andrew Jackson Potter. Organized as a mission church in 1881, the congregation built a sanctuary and parsonage in 1889 and, in 1930, a Spanish mission-style church — its building committee including future Texas governor Coke R. Stevenson, who had grown up in the congregation.
Why it matters
The church connects the rough-and-ready world of frontier circuit riders to the making of a Texas governor, showing how rural congregations shaped both faith and public leadership.
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Related people
- · Andrew Jackson Potter
- · Coke R. Stevenson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
College Street Church of Christ
Junction, TX
In 1880, as the Hill Country town of Junction City took shape, A.J. Bush led seventeen men and women in forming a Church of Christ, meeting first in the county courthouse. Members raised their first sanctuary in 1882, and in 1883 John S. Durst began a 42-year ministry that spanned the congregation's growth. Successive buildings rose on this site in 1890 and 1929 as the church became a fixture of frontier Junction's religious life.
First Baptist Church of Junction
Junction, TX
In 1880, on the raw Texas Hill Country frontier, local residents gathered at the Kimble County courthouse to organize a Baptist church, guided by a circuit-riding pastor from nearby Menard. After the courthouse burned, the town shared a community building until the Baptists raised their own frame sanctuary here in 1887 — succeeded by a Spanish-style building in 1929 and a brick one in 1959. Through it all the congregation anchored Junction with worship, music, and mission work.
Early History of Kimble County
Junction, TX
Carved from Bexar County in 1858 and named for a young lieutenant who fell at the Alamo, Kimble County waited until 1876 to organize itself formally — its very first district court convening the next spring beneath a live oak north of here, with Texas Rangers on hand to keep order on a raw frontier. The early government struggled to hold onto a home: fire destroyed its first frame courthouse and all the county records in 1884, and a second stone building burned partially in 1888 before the present courthouse rose in 1929.
Kimble County Courthouse
Junction, TX
This is the third courthouse to serve Kimble County, designed by San Antonio architect Henry Truman Phelps, who created courthouses for more than ten Texas counties in the early 20th century. Though based on Classical plans, the building marks a shift in his style toward the Art Moderne of the late 1920s, seen in its geometric ornament, cast-stone pilasters, and stepped parapet. It stands as the civic centerpiece of a Hill Country county seat.