Saint Mark United Methodist Church

🏛️The era

In the late 1870s and 1880s, Fort Worth went from a small frontier outpost to a booming railroad and cattle town. The railroad arrived in the 1870s, and with it came merchants, laborers, families and immigrants hoping to make a living in a fast-growing place. Cattle, rail lines and commerce turned the town that called itself 'Cowtown' into one of the main crossroads of North Texas.

The new residents brought their faiths and their languages with them. Swedish immigrants came to Texas in noticeable numbers in the second half of the nineteenth century, and like many immigrant groups, they often formed churches where they could worship in their own language. Fort Worth's Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in 1883, was one of these.

American Methodism was itself divided for much of this time. In 1844 the denomination had split, largely over slavery, into northern and southern branches, and it did not formally reunite until 1939. This congregation's history plays out against that larger split and reunion, and against the slow fading of immigrant languages that came with the early twentieth century.

👥People & events

Three separate congregations came together to form this church. The oldest was St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in 1877 with thirty charter members under the Rev. Harvey Webb. Next came the Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church in 1883, with twenty charter members led by the Rev. P.S. Juhline. For decades its members kept worshiping in Swedish, until 1920.

The third began in the late 1880s as a mission of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Fort Worth. It was named Mulkey Memorial for the Rev. and Mrs. William Mulkey, whose son George Mulkey was a charter member, and the Rev. John M. Barcus served as its first pastor. Naming the church after his parents was a family tribute that became a congregation's identity.

The merging happened in stages. In 1924 the Swedish congregation took the name Broadway Methodist Episcopal Church, a change that suggests a community now settled into English and into the city around it. In 1930 St. Paul's joined the Broadway congregation. At the 1940 Annual Conference, the combined church and Mulkey Memorial joined to become Broadway-Mulkey.

The name St. Mark came in 1945, and in 1960 the congregation moved to this site. Since then the building has passed to a new congregation, and it is now Christ-Life Church. Many groups of believers have worshiped here over the years.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

This congregation's history follows a pattern seen in immigrant churches across the country. In the first generation, worship in the native language held the community together. Over time, children and grandchildren grew up speaking English, the old language faded from the pulpit, and the church took a new name that tied it to a place rather than a homeland. The Swedish church's switch from Swedish in 1920 and its new name, Broadway, in 1924 follow that pattern closely.

The mergers reflect larger changes too. As cities grew and neighborhoods shifted, many small congregations found it hard to keep going alone and combined their members, their histories and their resources. Merging in 1940 came just after the 1939 reunion of American Methodism's long-divided branches, a time when Methodists across the country were working out how to become one church again.

Together, these stories show something about how American cities were built. Fort Worth's cattle and railroad history is well known. Its immigrant congregations get less attention, but they were part of the city's growth from the start.

🧭If you visit

The marker is in Fort Worth, so it's easy to add to a day of exploring the city's history, from its downtown to its well-known stockyards district. This is where the merged congregation has worshiped since 1960, and the building is still in use as a church today.

As you look at the building, think about the three congregations that came together here. One church once heard sermons in Swedish, another was named for a pastor's parents, and the third dates back to the 1870s, when Fort Worth was barely more than a frontier town.

It is an active place of worship, so please be courteous, especially during services. For anyone interested in immigrant history or in how American churches change over generations, this stop adds a lesser-known part of Fort Worth's story.