Follett United Methodist Church
Follett, Lipscomb County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the early pioneer days of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, circuit riders (ministers on horseback) provided pioneers with church services. In north Ivanhoe, Oklahoma, in 1903, a group of rural residents gathered to form the Ivanhoe Methodist Church, led by reverend G.L. Hayes. In 1911, the town relocated to south Ivanhoe and began to hold services at the Stillwater School located near the Texas border. In 1917, the church congregation relocated to the newly-formed town of Follett, Texas, located near the border and close to the railroad. Church worship services were held in the F.J. Birdsall building, later known as the E.E. King garage. By 1918, the congregation broke ground on a new basement building. Many people worshipped in the church basement for five years until membership outgrew the space. Fundraising allowed the church to build a modern structure in 1924 with a sanctuary and classrooms. In 1961, a new building was constructed on highway 15 with a fellowship hall, kitchen and pastor’s study. Over the last century, sixty-two ministers served the church and community. Throughout the years, the Follett United Methodist Church has played an important role in serving the local area through the support of youth programs, financial support, and local and foreign mission work. Despite membership of less than one hundred, the church’s outreach has impacted local and international communities since 1903. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Follett's Methodist congregation began in 1903 among panhandle pioneers served by horseback circuit riders, first gathering in Ivanhoe, Oklahoma. Following the railroad, the church moved to the new town of Follett, Texas, in 1917 and built a series of homes over the century — a basement church, a 1924 sanctuary, and a 1961 building on Highway 15.
Why it matters
Its migrations trace how frontier congregations followed settlers and railroads across the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle.
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Related people
- · G. L. Hayes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Follett United Methodist Church and Church Bell
Follett, TX
Methodism reached this corner of the Panhandle with circuit rider Grant L. Hayes, who founded churches at Ivanhoe, Oklahoma, in 1902 and at Stillwater, Texas, in 1904. After Follett sprang up on the Santa Fe Railroad in 1917, the two congregations merged there. The Old Ivanhoe church bell, cast in Ohio in 1907, followed the flock — installed in the first church tower in 1924 and carried into the modern church as a link to the pioneer past.
Follett
Follett, TX
Follett started life as "Ivanhoe" just across the line in Oklahoma, then chased the railroad, moving twice before settling on the Texas side in 1917. Renamed for a railroad surveyor, it became a gateway to the Panhandle's wheat-and-cattle "Golden Spread." Farming and ranching carried the town until oil and gas arrived in the 1950s.
Fairmont Cemetery
Follett, TX
At the far northern tip of Texas—closer to six other state capitals than to Austin—Fairmont Cemetery outlasted the towns that made it. Settlers founded Ivanhoe in Oklahoma in 1901, moved it to the railroad as South Ivanhoe, then in 1917 dragged its buildings on skids across the state line to a new Santa Fe stop named Follett. The cemetery, deeded in 1910, holds its first burial the reinterred body of a mother of six killed by lightning, alongside the children of Mexican railroad workers lost to the 1918 influenza epidemic and more than a hundred military veterans.
Fairview Cemetery
Lipscomb, TX
Fairview Cemetery was established in 1924 in Lipscomb, in the far northeastern corner of the Texas Panhandle. Its founding reflects the settlement of this high-plains ranching and farming country, which came comparatively late to permanent Anglo settlement. The cemetery's 2004 designation as a Historic Texas Cemetery honors its place in the community's history.