St. Paul United Church of Christ
Marlin, Falls County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1894 German settlers founded the St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Congregation with the Rev. F. W. Ernst Hartmann as pastor. In 1896 they built a school and called their first resident minister, the Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Press (1875-1967), who was later head of Eden Seminary in St. Louis for 35 years. The first church building was replaced by the present structure in 1920. Renamed St. Paul United Church of Christ after four denominations merged in 1957, the fellowship has played a vital role in preserving the German community's heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
German settlers founded this congregation in 1894 as St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran, building a school and calling their first resident minister, Samuel D. Press, who later led Eden Seminary in St. Louis for decades. The first church gave way to the present structure in 1920, and after a 1957 denominational merger it became St. Paul United Church of Christ. Throughout, it helped keep the local German community's heritage alive.
Why it matters
The church reflects the German immigrant faith communities that took root across central Texas and long preserved their language and culture.
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Related people
- ¡ Samuel D. Press
- ¡ F. W. Ernst Hartmann
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of St. Paul School
Marlin vicinity, TX
In the years after the Civil War, German immigrant farmers and ranchers put down roots in this corner of Falls County, and by 1896 they had raised a schoolhouse beside their St. Paul Church. As the community grew, trustees bought land and built a larger three-room school that carried local children through the ninth grade before they finished up in nearby Marlin. The little school served for 52 years until it consolidated with the Marlin district in 1948, leaving part of its water well behind as a quiet marker of the classroom that once stood here.
Trinity Lutheran Church
Riesel, TX
The first Lutheran service in this part of Falls County was held in 1882 by traveling missionary John J. Trinklein, preaching to a largely German community he urged to organize a church. Trinity Lutheran was established by 1883, and rebuilt repeatedly â a sanctuary lost to an 1892 tornado, replaced in 1893, and again in 1937. Its pastors founded a Christian day school that ran more than eighty years, and one went on to become the first president of Concordia Lutheran College in Austin.
Friedens Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ
Riesel, TX
German immigrants who helped settle Riesel organized this "Peace" congregation in 1903, first meeting in a schoolhouse before building a sanctuary near the present cemetery. When the community shifted, the frame church was set on skids and hauled by mule teams to its current site. Services were held in German into the 1940s, and the congregation built a new sanctuary in 1952.
Riesel
Riesel, TX
After the Civil War, fertile soil, good water, and rail access drew cotton farmers to this stretch of southeastern McLennan County, soon joined by German settlers from Washington County led by the Rev. Friedrich Von Schleumbach. The nearby postal stop of Roddy served the area until William Henry Riesel built a cotton gin here in 1890, giving a town a reason to grow. Von Schleumbach platted the townsite, and Riesel took shape as a local agricultural center.