Hondo Methodist Church
Hondo, Medina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early Methodist settlers in this area worshipped under a live oak tree on the banks of the Hondo Creek. The Methodists organized as a church in 1857 and held services in a log hut. A church/Masonic lodge was built on ten acres of land given to the church in 1859. Circuit riding ministers held services once a month. After the congregation moved to this site in 1890, newer buildings replaced outgrown structures. The church maintains its heritage of ministries for its members and a variety of community missions. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The first Methodists in this area worshiped under a live oak on the banks of Hondo Creek before organizing as a church in 1857 and meeting in a log hut. In 1859 they raised a shared church-and-Masonic-lodge building on donated land, served monthly by circuit-riding ministers. The congregation moved to its present Hondo site in 1890, replacing outgrown buildings as the community grew.
Why it matters
From a gathering under an oak tree to a settled congregation, the church traces how frontier faith communities anchored the settlement of the Texas Hill Country.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Medina County Courthouse
Hondo, TX
When Medina County reorganized its seat of government from Castroville to Hondo in 1892, the commissioners moved fast, letting a contract to build a fitting courthouse almost at once. Completed in 1893 from a slightly yellow limestone quarried on the nearby Decker Ranch, the Classical Revival building โ with its rusticated walls, columned portico, and Eastlake stone detailing โ anchored the young town. Two-story wings added between 1939 and 1942 drew on the same ranch quarry, tying the expansion to the original.
Hondo
Hondo, TX
Spanish explorers named the deep gully 'El Arroyo Hondo' long before Henri Castro's colonists began settling the area in the 1840s. The town took shape after the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad platted a townsite in 1881; a post office followed in 1882, and the county seat moved here from Castroville in 1892. Hondo grew as a cotton and trade center, struck oil in the 1920s, and exploded during World War II when an Army Air Corps base pushed its population toward 12,000 before the base closed in 1946.
Fohn-Bless Store
Hondo, TX
This store-residence was built in D'Hanis around 1878 by John Fohn, a native of Prussia, and served not only as a general mercantile but also as a site for local elections and a Justice of the Peace court. In 1897 Rolf Frerichs bought it from the Fohn estate and moved it to this location, where his son-in-law C. J. Bless ran a store until 1939. The Medina Electric Cooperative later used the building until 1963.
Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church
Hondo, TX
Raised in 1912 from locally made Seco brick, this was the second church to serve Hondo's Catholic community, designed by San Antonio architect Fred Bowen Gaenslen and built during the pastorate of the Rev. J. J. Meyers. Its round arches, brick detailing, and tripartite window mark it as Romanesque Revival. It hosted worship until 1969 and was rededicated as a parish hall in 1972.