Pleasanton Church of Christ
Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Records show that a Church of Christ congregation has existed in Atascosa County since at least 1858, when a congregation met at the head of Lucas Creek. A group of Pleasanton women, led by Texana (Holder) Brite, began holding Church of Christ services in their homes around 1910. As church membership increased, services were held on the grounds of the former Atascosa County Courthouse, vacated when the county seat moved from Pleasanton to Jourdanton. In 1914, Martha Jane (Price) Hines, Mahalia Elizabeth (Duck) Morris and Victor Hilton Tumlinson purchased land for a church as trustees of the Pleasanton congregation. The property was located at Lot No. 12 in Block No. 1 in the Franklin Place Addition; a small frame church building was constructed on the lot in 1924. Although the women of the congregation were its driving force, they were not allowed to preach, so men from San Antonio came to town on Sundays to do so. Until the 1930s, baptisms were held in Martin's Swimming Pool, on a hill at the west end of Franklin Street. Three long-time Sunday School teachers within the congregation were Nanny Mauldin, Mrs. Morris Pruett and Iris Andrews. The church's first full-time preacher, John Lee Norris, was hired in 1935. Community and missionary outreach have been important parts of the church's activities throughout the years. A radio ministry was broadcast by the church 1952-1959. Missionaries to Guatemala were sponsored by the church beginning in 1959. A jail ministry and Vacation Bible School have also been established. Today, Pleasanton Church of Christ continues as a spiritual and community leader. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Church of Christ presence in Atascosa County reaches back to at least 1858, but the Pleasanton congregation grew from home services begun around 1910 by a group of women led by Texana Brite. Women bought the land in 1914 and drove the church's early life, though custom barred them from preaching, so men came out from San Antonio on Sundays to lead worship. A frame building went up in 1924, and later decades brought a radio ministry, foreign missions, and the church's first full-time preacher.
Why it matters
The congregation's founding underscores the central—if often unacknowledged—role women played in building the religious life of small-town America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Church of Christ has deep roots in Atascosa County, in the ranching country south of San Antonio. Records show a congregation meeting at the head of Lucas Creek as early as 1858, when Texas was still young as a state and rural worship often meant a handful of families gathering wherever they could. That early presence sets the stage for a much later chapter that unfolded in the town of Pleasanton in the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century.
This was a time of shifting fortunes for small Texas towns, and Pleasanton felt one such shift directly: the county seat moved from Pleasanton to nearby Jourdanton, leaving the old county courthouse vacant. In a small community, a change like that reshuffled where people gathered and how a growing congregation found room to meet.
It was also an era with firm expectations about the roles of men and women in church life. Women could organize, host, teach children, fund, and sustain a congregation—but in many churches they were not permitted to preach. That convention shaped, in a very concrete way, how the Pleasanton congregation had to arrange its worship, and it makes the women's leadership here all the more striking.
People & events
The Pleasanton congregation grew from the determination of a group of local women. Around 1910, led by Texana Holder Brite, they began holding Church of Christ services in their own homes. As membership increased, they moved to the grounds of the former Atascosa County Courthouse—the building left empty when the county seat departed for Jourdanton—turning a symbol of the town's loss into a place of worship.
Women continued to carry the effort forward. In 1914, Martha Jane Price Hines, Mahalia Elizabeth Duck Morris, and Victor Hilton Tumlinson purchased land as trustees of the congregation, at Lot No. 12 in Block No. 1 of the Franklin Place Addition, where a small frame church building was constructed in 1924. Yet even as the women were the congregation's driving force, custom did not allow them to preach, so men came out from San Antonio on Sundays to lead the services they had built. In those early years, before the 1930s, baptisms were held at Martin's Swimming Pool, on a hill at the west end of Franklin Street.
Over time the church deepened and formalized. Long-serving Sunday School teachers—Nanny Mauldin, Mrs. Morris Pruett, and Iris Andrews—shaped generations of children. In 1935 the congregation hired its first full-time preacher, John Lee Norris. The decades that followed brought a radio ministry broadcast from 1952 to 1959, sponsorship of missionaries to Guatemala beginning in 1959, and a jail ministry and Vacation Bible School, extending the reach of a church that women had first gathered in their living rooms.
Its place in the American story
This congregation tells, in vivid local detail, a story that runs through the whole history of American religion: the central role women played in building and sustaining churches, even where they were barred from the pulpit. The women of Pleasanton organized the services, hosted them at home, bought the land as legal trustees, and kept the congregation alive—while men traveled in to do the preaching they were not permitted to do themselves.
That quiet paradox was repeated in communities across the country. The public face of the pulpit was almost always male, but the ongoing labor of organizing, funding, teaching, and holding a congregation together frequently fell to women. Pleasanton makes visible a pattern that is easy to overlook precisely because it happened outside the pulpit.
The congregation's later reach outward—broadcasting a radio ministry, sponsoring missionaries abroad, ministering in the local jail—reflects another national current: how even small-town American churches came to see themselves as connected to a wider world, using new tools like radio to carry their message far beyond the town limits. From a few women meeting in their homes to a congregation with a voice on the airwaves and missionaries overseas, the arc is a distinctly American one.
If you visit
Come to this site thinking about beginnings that don't announce themselves. There is no grand founding monument here—the congregation started in ordinary front rooms around 1910, in the homes of women whose names deserve to be remembered. Standing where their church took root, you are looking at a place built by people who did the essential work without ever standing at the pulpit.
Let the local landmarks anchor the story as you picture it. Imagine the congregation gathered on the grounds of the vacated county courthouse after the county seat moved away, and the early baptisms held not in a font but at a swimming pool on a hill at the west end of Franklin Street—a homely, human detail that brings the era close. These are the textures of small-town faith that no formal sanctuary quite captures.
Pleasanton sits in the ranch country south of San Antonio and makes a thoughtful stop for a traveler interested in the often-unsung history of women in American religious life. Take a moment to consider how a congregation that began in a few living rooms grew into one with a radio ministry and missionaries abroad—and how much of that beginning rested on the women who led the 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
- · Texana (Holder) Brite
- · John Lee Norris
Themes & tags
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