First United Methodist Church of Taft
Taft, San Patricio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
E. A. Hunter was appointed pastor to the Taft, Gregory, Portland and Ingleside circuit in 1910. Methodists in Taft and Gregory worked together to build Methodist worship and religious education in the area. A Methodist Sunday school had been meeting in Gregory since 1876. The Rev. Mr. Hunter organized the Taft Methodist Church in December 1910. The Rev. R. C. Aubrey was assigned to the circuit in 1911. The Taft and Gregory congregations held a joint revival, bringing in forty new Methodists. The entire circuit pooled its funds in order to raise a thousand dollars for the building of the new Southern Methodist University in 1911, as well. The Methodist and Presbyterian congregations in Taft shared the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company assembly hall and later the Taft School building. The two congregations built a new facility in 1921 on land given by the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. It was the first permanent church building in Taft. The two groups separated in 1923 when Methodists decided to erect their own building. That year the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations in Gregory voted to merge with the Taft churches. In November 1924 a new Taft Methodist Church building was completed. The church continued to grow, erecting new facilities as needed. A new sanctuary was formally opened on Easter Sunday, 1949. Membership increased dramatically in the 1950s, and plans for a new educational plant began in 1954 and were expanded in 1955. The Taft United Methodist Church congregation has been active in the community, from the Epworth League (organized in 1924) to a lay witness program begun in the 1980s to the modern family programs organized in the 1990s. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in December 1910 as part of a circuit spanning Taft, Gregory, Portland and Ingleside, this Methodist congregation shared halls and school buildings with local Presbyterians before erecting the first permanent church in Taft in 1921 on land given by the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. The two denominations parted in 1923, and a new Methodist building followed in 1924, with a fresh sanctuary opening on Easter Sunday, 1949. Its members even pooled scarce funds to help launch Southern Methodist University in 1911.
Why it matters
It shows how church life anchored the company towns of the Coleman-Fulton ranch country during South Texas's early-twentieth-century development.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1900s, the flat coastal prairie of San Patricio County was being turned into farm and ranch towns almost from scratch, much of it under the hand of a single great landholder, the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. Towns like Taft and Gregory grew up as company country, their lots, halls, and even their institutions shaped by the enterprise that owned the land around them.
Into communities this new, the churches came early — often before there was any church building at all. Methodism in particular spread across the American frontier through the circuit system, in which one traveling preacher served a string of far-flung settlements, riding a loop from town to town. A young town might share its pastor with three or four neighbors and hold its first services in whatever room could be borrowed.
This was the Progressive era, when even brand-new towns aspired to permanence: a real church, a real school, the institutions that turned a labor camp or a rail stop into a home. The story of this congregation is the story of that ambition taking root in company-town South Texas.
People & events
The congregation's roots run back to 1876, when a Methodist Sunday school began meeting in Gregory. But its organized life began in 1910, when the Reverend E. A. Hunter was appointed to a circuit that stretched across Taft, Gregory, Portland, and Ingleside. That December he formally organized the Taft Methodist Church, and the Methodists of Taft and Gregory set to building worship and religious education together.
When the Reverend R. C. Aubrey took the circuit in 1911, the Taft and Gregory congregations held a joint revival that brought in forty new Methodists. In a striking act of generosity for such small and young congregations, the whole circuit pooled its money that same year to contribute a thousand dollars toward founding Southern Methodist University. For a time the Methodists shared quarters with Taft's Presbyterians, meeting first in the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company's assembly hall and later in the Taft School building.
The two denominations even built together, raising Taft's first permanent church building in 1921 on land given by the pasture company. In 1923 they parted ways so the Methodists could erect their own home, and that year the Methodists and Presbyterians of Gregory voted to merge with the Taft churches. A new Methodist building was finished in November 1924. The congregation kept growing — a new sanctuary opened on Easter Sunday, 1949, and the booming 1950s brought expanded educational buildings — while its people stayed active in community life, from the Epworth League organized in 1924 to family programs in the 1990s.
Its place in the American story
This church's history is a compact lesson in how faith communities helped knit together the raw new towns of the American West and South. Before there were permanent buildings, there were shared halls, borrowed schoolrooms, circuit-riding preachers, and neighboring denominations making common cause. The early cooperation between Methodists and Presbyterians here — worshiping in the same rooms, even building together before going their separate ways — reflects a practical, frontier ecumenism born of necessity.
The congregation's thousand-dollar gift toward founding Southern Methodist University in 1911 links this small coastal town to a much larger national current. SMU became one of the region's major institutions, and the fact that a fledgling circuit of prairie churches helped seed it shows how local congregations invested in the broad project of building lasting institutions across the growing country.
There is also the company-town dimension. That the church rose on land given by the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company, in halls the company owned, is a reminder of how deeply a single landholding enterprise could shape civic and spiritual life. Across America's company towns, the church was often where residents built something that belonged to the community itself.
If you visit
Approach this one as a living-history stop rather than a ruin. Unlike many markers, this one commemorates a congregation whose story runs unbroken from a Sunday school in 1876 to modern family programs — a thread of community life more than a century long. Reading the marker, you are standing in a town that a church helped build.
As you look around Taft, keep the company-town backdrop in mind. This was Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company country, and the land beneath the first permanent church here was the company's gift. Picture the early days when Methodists and Presbyterians shared an assembly hall and a schoolhouse, still years away from buildings of their own.
If you are touring the towns of the old pasture company — Taft, Gregory, and the surrounding markers — this church makes a fine complement to the ranching and mansion sites nearby. Those tell you who owned the land and its money; this one tells you where the people gathered, married, mourned, and made their town a home.
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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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company
Taft, TX
Organized in 1879 from an earlier cattle partnership, the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company ran 167,000 acres of South Texas range and pioneered fencing the open range and shipping cattle by boat from its own wharves. Financial troubles passed control to Ohio investor David Sinton, whose son-in-law Charles P. Taft lent the ranch its name; under manager Joseph F. Green it became one of the state's largest and most innovative operations. The company town of Taft, platted in 1904, outlived the ranch, whose enterprises were sold off by 1928.
President William Howard Taft Visits Taft
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In 1908 Charles P. Taft, a director of the sprawling 165,000-acre Taft Ranch, invited his half-brother, President-elect William Howard Taft, to visit the Gulf Coast community that bore the family name. Elaborate preparations followed—a nine-hole golf course and a 22-room hotel for the press—and in October 1909 the President's railroad car arrived, met by the Texas governor. Taft toured the town, spoke at the school, ate ice cream at the company creamery, and enjoyed a barbecue and rodeo held in his honor before addressing a crowd of 15,000 in Corpus Christi.
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