St. George's Episcopal Church
Texas City, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
St. George's Episcopal Church The first Episcopal worship service in Texas City took place on March 23, 1913, two years after the city incorporated and the same year the United States Army arrived as part of its coastal defense of American interests during the Mexican Revolution. The Rev. C. W. Freeland, chaplain to the 6th Cavalry stationed in Texas City at the time, presided at the Easter Day service. That summer, the Rt. Rev. George H. Kinsolving, Bishop of Texas, organized the new congregation as a mission to be known as St. George's. Worship services were held in the homes of members until the spring of 1915. In that year, St. George's purchased and moved an Army recreation building to its new property at 314 10th Avenue North. Despite the destruction of its first church building in the 1915 Hurricane, the first recorded baptisms were held in September 1915, and Bishop Kinsolving confirmed the seven members in the first confirmation class in 1917. A new frame chapel, built on property at 10th Avenue and 4th Street, was completed about 1923. In 1940, St. George's became self-supporting and moved from mission to parish status. Within the next decade, the congregation experienced World War II, the 1947 Texas City explosion and the beginnings of a booming city economy. During the 1950s, the growing congregation constructed a new church building at this site, a rectory a few blocks east, a classroom and office wing, and a parish hall. Hurricane Carla in 1961 and a disastrous fire in 1983 caused much damage to the facilities, but the members of the congregation persevered to continue their mission and a variety of ministries, including worship, education, and community outreach, into the 21st century. (2003)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
St. George's Episcopal congregation traces its start to a 1913 Easter service led by a U.S. Army cavalry chaplain, stationed in Texas City during the coastal buildup of the Mexican Revolution years. The young mission bought and moved an Army recreation building for its first home, then rebuilt after a 1915 hurricane and grew through the Texas City disaster of 1947 and the postwar boom. It reached full parish status in 1940 and has sustained worship and outreach into the present day.
Why it matters
The church's century of rebuilding after storms, explosion, and fire mirrors the endurance of the Gulf Coast communities whose faith institutions repeatedly rose from disaster.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · C. W. Freeland
- · George H. Kinsolving
Related events
- · 1915 hurricane
- · 1947 Texas City disaster
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Greater Bell Zion Missionary Baptist Church
Texas City, TX
In the years after the Civil War, a group of African Americans — many of them Black cowboys who worked the Chisholm Trail — bought land in central Galveston County to build a community. Their Baptist church, founded in 1885 by the Rev. Israel S. Campbell, an escaped slave known as the "Father of Black Texas Baptists," became the settlement's backbone. It changed names with its pastors over the years and, from an early school begun in 1874, long served as a place of both worship and learning.
Lorraine Crosby School
Hitchcock, TX
The education of Hitchcock's African American children began in 1903 in a private home and a Baptist church annex, and a permanent school opened in 1914 after residents raised money through fish fries and other fundraisers to buy the lot. Long known as the Hitchcock Colored School, it was renamed in 1949 for beloved teacher and principal Lorraine Crosby. Despite scarce funding, staff and families built up sports teams and a scout troop; the school graduated classes from 1960 until integration in the mid-1960s.
Galveston Historical Foundation
Galveston, TX
In 1871, a small group of Galveston men organized a historical society to gather and preserve the documents of Texas's past — an early act of civic memory-keeping on a booming Gulf Coast port. Galveston was then one of the wealthiest and busiest cities in Texas, and its citizens saw value in safeguarding the record of the young state's turbulent history. That founding impulse eventually grew into a lasting preservation movement in the city.
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
Galveston, TX
Holy Rosary began not as a church but as a school: in 1886 Bishop Nicholas Gallagher opened a one-room classroom for African American children in Galveston, staffed first by Dominican sisters. The congregation that gathered there became one of Texas's first African American Catholic parishes, with Fr. Philip Keller appointed pastor in 1889. The Sisters of the Holy Family—the first African American sisters to teach in the state's diocesan schools—took charge in 1898, and the parish sheltered more than 200 people during the deadly 1900 storm before opening Texas's first Catholic high school for African Americans in 1927.