Means Methodist Church
Andrews, Andrews County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(First church in Andrews County). Organized in 1907 by circuit preacher F. T . Pollard and seven charter members. The group held services in local school until 1912, when a one-room church was built, financed by donations of members, including a generous gift from rancher J. S. Means. All denominations were allowed to worship in this early structure. In 1944 the church (located 2 blocks W, 4 blocks S. of here, on main St.) burned and members once again met in the school. Present building was finished in 1946; educational building in 1955; and the modern sanctuary, capable of seating 700, in 1957. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When a circuit-riding preacher gathered seven charter members in 1907, Andrews County had its first church. For years the little flock met in the schoolhouse until a rancher's gift helped raise a one-room sanctuary in 1912, open to worshippers of every denomination. Fire took that building in 1944, but the congregation rebuilt, growing by the 1950s into a sanctuary seating hundreds.
Why it matters
The story of a frontier congregation graduating from schoolhouse to sanctuary mirrors how faith communities knit together the scattered ranching settlements of West Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · F. T. Pollard
- · J. S. Means
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Shafter's Trail
Andrews, TX
In 1875 Colonel William R. Shafter led a company of soldiers from Fort Concho across the arid plains toward Monument Springs, New Mexico, mapping the scarce watering holes that made the country passable. Along the way he skirmished with Native fighters and located the salt lake that still carries his name. The maps his expedition produced charted a land that had been largely unknown to newcomers, opening the Permian Basin to settlement.
J. S. Means Ranch House
Andrews, TX
Built in 1900, this is among the oldest houses in Andrews County, raised at the exact point where four claimants' land sections met so each could satisfy the legal requirement to live on his claim. After the group proved up their claims, they sold to Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Means, who by 1904 held fourteen sections and kept adding land to build a thriving cattle ranch. The operation ran cattle even after oil fields spread across the range in the 1920s.
Original Townsite of Andrews
Andrews, TX
When Andrews County was organized in 1910, the new town of Andrews rose on land homesteaded by Robert Madison "Bob" Means, who had begun ranching the West Texas plains with his father in 1899. In a colorful county-seat fight against rival Shafter City, Means famously deeded town lots to local cowboys so they could register as voters and swing the election. He served as county clerk and gave land and money to the growing town for the rest of his life, retiring comfortably after oil was struck on his land in 1934.
Early Settlers of Andrews County
Andrews, TX
Andrews County sat on one of Texas's last frontiers, where Anglo settlement lagged some sixty years behind the rest of the state because of Comanche resistance and a punishing scarcity of water. O. B. Holt filed the first land claim in 1886, and hardy families like the Cowdens and Peter Von Holebeke followed, but by 1900 the county still counted only 87 people and did not organize until 1910. Windmill pumps and drift fences finally made ranching workable on the dry plains, and the 1930 discovery of oil turned decades of stubborn endurance into sudden prosperity.