Johnson Street Church of Christ
San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1898 or 1899, Mrs. W. A. Pringle began seeking those in the San Angelo area who might wish to join her family in worship in the Church of Christ tradition. Andrew Jackson McCarty of Austin held a revival in San Angelo in 1900, after which a small group began meeting regularly. They formed the nucleus of what would be the Harris Avenue Church of Christ. In 1901 they purchased a house in which to hold services. Their first minister was T. B. Larimore. The church grew with San Angelo. Larger buildings were erected in 1906 and in 1936. Among the congregation's outreach ministries were local and foreign mission endeavors, which began in the 1940s. The church dedicated a building here on Johnson Street in 1963 and became Johnson Street Church of Christ. The congregation continued with programs of worship and service. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The congregation began at the turn of the century, when Mrs. W.A. Pringle set out to find neighbors in the San Angelo area who shared her Church of Christ faith. A 1900 revival led by Andrew Jackson McCarty drew a small group into regular worship, and in 1901 they bought a house for services under their first minister, T.B. Larimore. The church grew with the city — into larger buildings in 1906 and 1936, into local and foreign missions by the 1940s, and finally into a new home on Johnson Street in 1963.
Why it matters
The congregation's growth traces San Angelo's own rise, showing how a frontier town's churches expanded alongside the community they served.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
At the turn of the twentieth century, San Angelo was a young West Texas town still shaking off its frontier beginnings. It had grown up beside Fort Concho, the cavalry post at the meeting of the Concho rivers, and when the railroad reached the area in the late 1880s the settlement began to boom in earnest. This was sheep-and-wool country, a place of open ranges, dusty main streets, and families arriving from farther east to make a go of it.
Into that setting, in 1898 or 1899, a woman set out to find neighbors who shared her faith. Precisely which of those two years it was, no one can now say for certain — and the marker honestly leaves the question open. What is clear is that the Progressive Era was a time when churches were among the first institutions a growing town built, knitting scattered newcomers into a community with a shared calendar and a shared purpose.
The Church of Christ tradition she carried belonged to a broad American movement that prized simple, New Testament worship. In a raw, still-forming town, that plain and portable faith needed little more to begin than a few willing families and a room to meet in.
People & events
The story starts with Mrs. W. A. Pringle. It is worth pausing on how she is remembered — recorded by her husband's initials, in the custom of her day, rather than by her own given name. Yet the congregation's whole history begins with her initiative: she was the one who went looking for others in the San Angelo area who might want to worship together, and it was her family's faith that formed the seed.
The scattered seekers she gathered got their spark in 1900, when Andrew Jackson McCarty of Austin came to town and held a revival. Revivals were the great engine of church growth on the frontier — days of preaching that could turn a handful of interested families into a committed body. After McCarty's meetings, a small group began gathering regularly, and they became the nucleus of the congregation.
In 1901 that group took a concrete step and bought a house to hold their services, calling T. B. Larimore as their first minister. From that modest beginning the church kept pace with the city itself — a larger building in 1906, another in 1936, and mission work reaching both local needs and foreign fields by the 1940s. In 1963 the congregation dedicated a new home on Johnson Street and took the name it carries today.
Its place in the American story
The rise of this one congregation is a compact version of a story that played out across the American West. As railroads pushed into new country and towns sprang up almost overnight, it was often ordinary people — many of them women — who did the quiet work of founding the churches, schools, and societies that turned a raw settlement into a real community.
It is also a window onto women's history in a period when women rarely held formal titles or public office. The record names the ministers who preached and led, but the congregation exists at all because a woman decided it should and went door to door, in effect, to make it happen. That pattern — men in the pulpit, women doing the founding and sustaining — repeats in countless local histories, and it is easy to miss unless a marker like this one preserves it.
The congregation's reach into local and foreign missions by the 1940s mirrors a wider American impulse of the era, when even small-town churches saw themselves as part of a worldwide effort. A body that began with one family's search for like-minded neighbors had, within two generations, cast its concern well beyond the banks of the Concho.
If you visit
Stand on Johnson Street and you are looking at the congregation's fourth chapter, not its first — the 1963 building that gave the church its current name. As you take it in, try to picture the long road behind it: a rented house in 1901, then the two earlier buildings that came and went as the town grew.
San Angelo makes a rewarding stop on a West Texas road trip, and this marker rewards the traveler who likes to read a town through its institutions. Pair it with a visit to the restored grounds of old Fort Concho nearby, and you can trace the arc from cavalry post to settled city that this congregation grew up alongside.
Most of all, let the marker do what it does best: it puts a name — or at least an initial — to the person who started it all. It is a small monument to the idea that a community often begins with one determined neighbor looking for others who feel the same way.
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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Related people
- · W. A. Pringle
- · Andrew Jackson McCarty
- · T. B. Larimore
Themes & tags
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