First United Methodist Church of Rising Star
Rising Star, Eastland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First United Methodist Church of Rising Star Rising Star was only a sparsely settled community when schoolteacher James Irby organized this congregation in 1879. The Rev. L.S. Chamberlain of Sipe Springs led the first service, which was attended by Irby, his wife Sallie, and Dennis Bond, in a small log building east of the present town. The congregation worshiped at several locations before 1888, when member Lucy L. Anderson donated a plot of ground for the building of a small frame structure at the present site, where the church held worship services and Sunday school classes for nearly forty years. In 1903 the Rev. D.A. McGuire was appointed to serve the First Methodist Church of Rising Star and became the fellowship's first full-time pastor. The 1920 oil boom brought new members into the church, resulting in the need for larger facilities. The current church building was completed in 1926 during the pastorate of the Rev. Fizer M. Noe. For more than one hundred years, the First United Methodist Church of Rising Star has provided the community with significant service and leadership. Its emphasis on Christian education and mission work has produced a number of ministers and missionaries from among its members. (1984)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When schoolteacher James Irby gathered a handful of worshipers in a log building east of town in 1879, Rising Star was barely a settlement. The little Methodist congregation moved several times before Lucy Anderson donated ground for a frame church in 1888, and the 1920 oil boom finally swelled its ranks enough to build the brick sanctuary completed in 1926. Across more than a century it became a seedbed for ministers and missionaries.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like this were the social and moral backbone of new Texas towns, growing and rebuilding in step with the oil booms that reshaped the region.
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Related people
- · James Irby
- · Lucy L. Anderson
- · Rev. D.A. McGuire
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rising Star
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