Historic Markers in Texas

Cameron, TX

This congregation grew out of the first wave of Methodist missionary work in Texas, tracing its roots to an 1841 camp meeting in Milam County—just four years after the earliest Methodist preachers reached the young republic. For decades a circuit rider served Cameron until the church earned a full-time pastor in 1885, raising a succession of buildings that culminated in the sanctuary first used in 1923.

Canton, TX

Methodist worship reached Canton in 1852, soon after the town became Van Zandt County's seat, when families hosted services in homes and brush arbors as a mission of the Athens church. Circuit-riding preachers and, by 1856, a full-time pastor tended the scattered flock through the lean years after the Civil War. In 1888 the congregation built its first sanctuary with funds the Ladies Aid Society raised by selling chicken dinners.

Carthage, TX

In 1855, as East Texas was filling with settlers, a handful of Methodists in the young town of Carthage began meeting in the local Masonic Hall. They bought this property in 1859 and raised a frame church whose completion was interrupted by the Civil War, sharing the building for a time with local Baptists. Over the following century the congregation rebuilt in frame and then brick, and in 1959 it was established enough to help found a daughter church.

Cedar Hill, TX

Organized in 1854, this Cedar Hill congregation lost its first church to a tornado just two years later, then worshiped in a frame building before raising the present structure in 1900. With its off-center entry tower and Gothic detailing, the church is a fine example of the country houses of worship that once dotted the Texas countryside. The bell installed in 1900 still calls the faithful to services.

Centerville, TX

Before Centerville had a formal congregation, traveling circuit riders like Henry Cassady and George Tittle carried Methodism to this Texas frontier, and in 1850 the church organized in earnest. Worshippers met in a schoolhouse until their first sanctuary rose in 1871, and a grander building with a bell tower replaced it in 1921. The congregation felt the reach of World War II directly when its pastor became an army chaplain and two members were killed in action.

Cisco, TX

When Methodist circuit rider Lamb Trimble organized this congregation at Red Gap in 1880, West Texas was still frontier country served by preachers who rode from settlement to settlement. The church followed the new town of Cisco when it was founded a year later, worshiping in a schoolhouse until a railroad company donated land for its first sanctuary in 1883. A devastating 1893 tornado that killed 23 people leveled the buildings, but members rebuilt—later riding the Eastland County oil boom of the 1920s to a grand new edifice dedicated in 1920.

Clarendon, TX

Methodist minister Lewis H. Carhart founded Clarendon in 1878 as a sober religious and educational colony on the Panhandle plains—cowboys mockingly dubbed the saloonless town "Saint's Roost." When the railroad arrived in 1887 the town moved to its present site, where circuit riders and then the Rev. Isaac L. Mills organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1888. As Clarendon College drew new members, the congregation built its large Classical Revival sanctuary in 1910.

Columbus, TX

One of the earliest Protestant congregations in Texas, this Methodist church traces its roots to Stephen F. Austin's original colony and built its first sanctuary near the Colorado River in 1848 on a lot sold for a single dollar. It moved and rebuilt as Columbus grew, raising a new church south of the railroad in 1873 and its present site's building in 1897. Its long list of early trustees reads like a roster of the town's founding families.

Comanche, TX

This Methodist congregation grew out of the frontier settlement of Cora, the first seat of Comanche County, where it was organized in 1858 and then followed the government to the new town of Comanche a year later. In the rough-hewn early days it drew colorful circuit-riding pastors, none more so than the Rev. Hugh M. Childress, the gun-toting "Bear Hunter Preacher." As membership grew, the church built new facilities in 1879 and absorbed smaller country congregations from White Point, Indian Creek, and Proctor.

Crawford, TX

Along the Central Texas prairie of McLennan County, faith took root the way it often did on the frontier: with families gathering in their homes for prayer and hymns as early as the 1840s. A congregation coalesced around Crawford's one-room schoolhouse in the late 1870s and was formally organized under the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. When the railroad reached the area in 1881, the whole town—church included—picked up and moved southwest to meet the tracks.

Cuero, TX

Methodist circuit riders were carrying worship to the Cuero Creek area as early as 1841, but a permanent congregation took root only after the town incorporated in 1873. From eight members in 1876 the church grew past a hundred within a decade, erecting its building in 1886. Later generations raised the structure over a new basement, added corner towers and a pipe organ, and adorned the sanctuary with memorial gifts.

Dallas, TX

Methodism reached Dallas as early as 1846, when circuit riders stopped at the small village, and the first organized group met in 1850 without a building of their own. The Civil War swallowed their building funds, but members persevered to dedicate the Lamar Street Methodist Church in 1868; after fire and mergers, the congregation borrowed space at Temple Emanuel before completing new homes in 1889 and 1926. Renamed across denominational changes, it became First United Methodist Church in 1968 and helped seed Methodist churches across North Texas.

De Kalb, TX

Methodism reached this corner of northeast Texas with circuit rider William Stevenson, who preached along the Red River in 1815 even though Protestant worship was still illegal in Spanish Texas. A mission began in DeKalb in 1836, the year the town was founded, when the area was still reckoned part of Miller County, Arkansas. The first church was a humble log building that doubled as a schoolhouse, and the congregation followed the town's growth — moving with the arrival of the Texas & Pacific Railroad and again in 1913.

Del Rio, TX

Six settlers organized a Methodist congregation in the border town of Del Rio in 1882, meeting first in members' homes before building a frame chapel on the edge of town. The church grew with the city—swelling as soldiers trained at nearby Camp Michie during World War I and again with the opening of Laughlin Air Force Base—and today carries on missions at home and abroad.

Dickinson, TX

Methodists began meeting in Dickinson-area homes in 1876, and by 1885 they had built a frame structure that served as both church and school. The great Galveston storm of 1900 swept away their building, and the congregation rebuilt in 1901 using salvaged materials. Over the decades it was renamed to honor benefactors—Howell Memorial in 1944—before becoming First United Methodist Church of Dickinson in the sanctuary begun in 1975.

Duncanville, TX

When the railroad reached Duncanville in 1882, it brought settlers who first gathered in an interdenominational Union Sunday School before organizing a Methodist congregation in 1883 with fourteen charter members under the Rev. George W. Owens. Their first sanctuary rose on this site in 1889 and served for some four decades. The church became a full-time station in 1946 and grew alongside the postwar suburb around it.

Eastland, TX

Methodists were worshiping in Eastland County as early as 1865, and soon after the town of Eastland was platted in 1875 they gathered in a small log house under circuit rider Melville B. Johnson. In 1882 they built the beloved "Little White Church," which served until the Eastland County oil boom of the 1920s brought the growth—and the money—for a new sanctuary.

Elkhart, TX

Methodism reached this part of Anderson County in 1840, when settlers gathered to worship in one another's homes, and in 1878 a formal mission took shape under a circuit-riding minister who tended eight congregations at once. From a white frame sanctuary with a high steeple raised in the 1890s, the church added a Sunday school, a youth ministry, and a women's missionary society, rebuilding and expanding across the decades to a new sanctuary consecrated in 1974. Its long life traces the settlement and maturing of Elkhart itself.

Euless, TX

In the late 1860s, Methodist families from Tennessee settled this corner of Tarrant County and began meeting for worship, sharing a Grange hall with neighbors of other faiths. As pioneer Elisha Adam Euless gave his name to the growing community, the congregation built its first sanctuary and welcomed circuit-riding preachers who covered a wide rural territory. The church grew alongside the town, and when Fort Worth and Dallas sprawl reached Euless in the mid-twentieth century, both congregation and community expanded together.

Evant, TX

Organized in the mid-1870s in the Langford's Cove community, later renamed Evant, this Methodist congregation began with just seven charter members and, when its founding pastor returned to Mississippi, kept the faith alive through prayer meetings, brush-arbor gatherings, and camp meetings. New families arriving from as far as Rhode Island and Wales swelled its ranks, and the congregation shared a building with other denominations until it built its own in 1905. It reached its peak of 201 members in 1963 and continues today.

Falfurrias, TX

The Rev. C. W. Perkins organized this Methodist congregation in 1904 with just seven charter members, worshipping first in the railroad depot and the 1905 frame schoolhouse shared by every denomination. In 1906 the Methodists built their own church on land donated by town founder Edward C. Lasater. Battered by hurricanes in 1916 and 1919 and remodeled in 1935, the frame building gave way to the present church in 1950.

Ferris, TX

The Houston & Texas Central Railway laid out Ferris in 1874, and that same year circuit-riding ministers John S. Davis and George W. Owens began gathering Methodists in the new rail town. The railroad donated lots in 1885 for a first church, and as Ferris grew into a cotton-ginning town of shops, depot, and schools, the congregation moved through successive conferences and buildings, sharing space with Presbyterians in the 1920s. A modern sanctuary followed in 1964.

Florence, TX

In the 1850s Florence was a cluster of log cabins with a shared stone building that served as church and meeting house on the Texas frontier. Circuit-riding Methodist ministers, serving several communities at once, brought regular preaching, and Rev. John Carpenter became the congregation's first appointed pastor in 1858. The church grew across the decades through mission societies, youth groups, and successive new buildings.

Gainesville, TX

Formed in 1852, this North Texas congregation first shared a meeting place with other denominations and the Masonic Lodge before raising a frame church in 1878 on land donated by James M. Lindsay. The present red-brick, Gothic Revival sanctuary, built by contractor John Garrett, was begun in 1892 and dedicated in 1893, and is notable for its Art Nouveau stained glass. An education building was added in 1965.

Ganado, TX

Methodists were gathering for brush-arbor and early-morning services around Ganado well before this congregation formally organized in 1880. Its first log building doubled as a schoolhouse, circuit-riding preachers served it on horseback, and its early worshippers included both Anglo and African American members. Successive sanctuaries—frame in 1895, brick in 1928, and a new building in 1959—trace the community's growth over more than a century.

Georgetown, TX

Begun in 1849 as a frontier mission served by circuit-riding preachers, this Methodist congregation gained a resident pastor in 1879 and raised its first building on the young Southwestern University campus. The present limestone church, hand-cut on site in 1891–93 and laid out on the plan of a Greek cross, was overseen by physics professor Robert S. Hyer, and it later shaped the callings of two brothers who became Methodist bishops.

Giddings, TX

Founded in 1871 with twenty-four charter members, this was the first congregation organized in Giddings — predating even the platting of the town in 1872 — under its first pastor, the Rev. William C. Lewis. The members raised their first church building in 1879, and the congregation grew from a stop on a preaching circuit into a full station charge by 1938. The present sanctuary dates to 1957.

Gilmer, TX

Gilmer's early settlers found Baptists and Methodists sharing the county's log courthouse for services by 1849, and a Methodist circuit rider soon organized a Sunday school and congregation that was chartered around 1852. The church founded separate men's and women's academies in the mid-1850s, schools that ran until they closed in 1862 amid the Civil War. Education remained central to the congregation as it grew, building ever-larger sanctuaries into the twentieth century.

Gladewater, TX

Gladewater grew slowly as a railroad town from the 1870s until, in 1922, fourteen people led by the Rev. H.T. Perritte gathered in a family home to organize a Methodist congregation and soon built a one-room sanctuary. Everything changed in the 1930s, when the East Texas oil boom flooded the town with new residents and swelled the church alongside it. Its members went on to form the men's and women's groups that carried the congregation's many programs forward.

Goliad, TX

Organized in the 1840s when Goliad was a young frontier town, this Methodist congregation first worshipped in a private home alongside Presbyterians before raising its own building around 1852. By 1859 the Goliad Circuit claimed the largest membership in its conference, and Black and white members worshipped together until 1872, when Goliad's first African American church was organized. An F4 tornado leveled the building in 1902, and it was rebuilt from the salvaged wood to a Gothic design by Danish-born architect Jules Leffland.

Happy, TX

A Methodist fellowship took shape in Happy in 1905 out of meetings held in settlers' homes, first worshipping in a schoolhouse and then a small frame church shared with Baptists, Christians, and Presbyterians. When the town relocated to the new Santa Fe rail line, the congregation literally hauled its church building by wagon to the fresh townsite in 1909. A circuit rider reorganized the little flock, which weathered a fire, remodels, and a new 1930s sanctuary to keep serving the Panhandle community.

Harlingen, TX

Thirty-one charter members founded Harlingen's Methodist congregation in 1910, at first sharing a frame sanctuary and served by a circuit-riding preacher who walked between towns. With land offered by city founder Lon C. Hill, they built Harlingen's first brick church by Easter 1911 and grew alongside the booming Rio Grande Valley city. The congregation weathered the 1933 Labor Day hurricane as a refuge, sent thirteen members to die in World War II, and helped plant a family of new churches, several serving the area's Spanish-speaking community.

Hebbronville, TX

The First United Methodist Church of Hebbronville was organized in December 1912 at Mrs. Ralph McCampbell's ranch, in the heart of South Texas cattle country. For fifteen years its members worshiped alongside the local Baptists in a schoolhouse, until the Edds family donated land for a shared church, completed in 1927. For a century it has served as a beacon for this ranching community.

Hempstead, TX

Methodism took hold in Hempstead around 1857, just after the town was platted, and an 1859 revival swelled the young congregation enough to acquire a building for worship. Formally deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1883, the congregation raised a succession of sanctuaries and served as one of the town's central gathering places. Through mergers and renamings it became today's First United Methodist Church of Hempstead.

Henderson, TX

Organized in 1842 by the Rev. Preston W. Hobbs during the days of the Republic of Texas, this congregation predates Rusk County itself. Its early ministers included the noted circuit rider William Craig and J. W. Fields, who helped found the Fowler Institute, a Methodist school, in 1850. Through more than a century it has anchored community service and leadership in Henderson.

Hewitt, TX

Methodist settlers around Hewitt first worshiped at Stanford Chapel, organized about 1875, and shared a union Sunday school with local Baptists before the Northwest Texas Conference formed a Hewitt circuit in 1900. The Hewitt Methodist Church took shape that year, absorbing members of Stanford Chapel when it disbanded in 1912 and even moving its tabernacle into town for summer revivals. The congregation became a full station in 1953 and marked its centennial in 2000.

Hico, TX

In the young railroad town of Hico, a small band of 29 Methodists organized in 1881 and worshipped in the local schoolhouse until a winter revival helped fund their first sanctuary, completed in 1887 on land the Texas Central Railway had donated. As the congregation swelled past 300 and neighboring communities like Carlton, Duffau and Fairy folded their memberships in, the church rebuilt in wood around 1902-03 and later modernized behind a tan-brick façade.

Houston, TX

Methodism in Houston dates to 1837, when missionaries organized a Sunday School Society in the brand-new Republic of Texas capital, and the church was formally established in 1839. Meeting first on land the Allen Brothers had reserved when they platted Houston, the congregation grew with the city, opening a grand new sanctuary at Main and Clay in 1910 and eventually becoming First United Methodist Church. Over the decades it helped found schools, community centers, and Methodist Hospital, and it began televising worship in 1955.

Humble, TX

Humble was a raw oil-boom town in 1907 when a Houston minister began holding Methodist services for its swelling population—the first ones meeting in a former bottle factory. The congregation organized in 1908 with 37 charter members and raised a small frame church the next year, later lost to fire. Each successive building traced the growth of both church and town.

Huntsville, TX

Methodism reached Huntsville in the 1840s through circuit-riding preachers before the young Texas Methodist Conference assigned a resident pastor in 1842. The congregation worshiped without a permanent building for years, finally raising its first sanctuary in the 1850s and rebuilding repeatedly as the town grew and fire twice took the structure. Each rebuilding — culminating in the 1913 church — traces the deepening roots of an East Texas town settled in the Republic era.

Jacksonville, TX

This Methodist congregation began in 1845 in the rural settlement of Gum Creek, served by circuit-riding minister Henderson D. Palmer. As the new town of Jacksonville drew away homes, businesses, and the post office, the church followed — moving in 1853, again in 1874 to the rail line, and finally to its present site in 1882. Its early buildings doubled as schoolhouses during the week.

Jasper, TX

Methodism reached Jasper in the late 1830s when circuit rider Moses Spear organized a congregation in the young Republic of Texas, with Daniel Carl as first pastor in 1839. Early worshipers gathered in homes, the courthouse, and the Masonic lodge until an 1859 sanctuary — where men, women, and enslaved people entered by separate doors — served the town. The women's missionary society funded "the church the women built," completed in 1906.

Junction, TX

Early Junction worshippers gathered under brush arbors, and by the 1870s an active Methodist Society hosted circuit-riding preachers like the famously combative 'Fighting Parson' Andrew Jackson Potter. Organized as a mission church in 1881, the congregation built a sanctuary and parsonage in 1889 and, in 1930, a Spanish mission-style church — its building committee including future Texas governor Coke R. Stevenson, who had grown up in the congregation.

Katy, TX

In the last years of the nineteenth century, settlers on the Texas coastal prairie west of Houston gathered across denominational lines—Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Disciples of Christ—for a Union Sunday School in a neighbor's parlor. Around 1900 the Methodists organized their own fellowship, and in 1904 they raised the first church building in the young town of Katy. Successive sanctuaries built in 1938 and 1961 traced the congregation's growth alongside the community it anchored.

Kingsville, TX

Kingsville's first Methodist service was held on March 4, 1904, when a visiting Corpus Christi pastor preached to thirty-one worshippers seated under mesquite trees in the brand-new railroad town on the King Ranch. The congregation moved from storefronts and a borrowed Presbyterian church into its own building by 1909, and grew through a succession of sanctuaries to the one completed in 1951. Its decades of missionary and community work helped anchor the young South Texas town.

Kountze, TX

In the 1880s the Texas and New Orleans Railroad opened up the Big Thicket country of Hardin County, and the new town of Kountze grew up along the tracks, capturing the county seat from nearby Hardin in 1886. As settlers arrived, the Rev. James S. Murphy gathered a Methodist congregation that laid the cornerstone of the town's first church in 1888, a sanctuary shared by worshippers of every denomination. Served for years by circuit-riding ministers, the congregation grew into a full charge with its own pastor by 1940 and a new sanctuary in 1951.

Lampasas, TX

Methodists were worshiping in Lampasas by 1866, in the first years of Reconstruction, with Rev. William F. Cummins among the earliest circuit pastors. The congregation built a sanctuary on Fourth Street in 1880 and, four years later, sponsored Centenary College, a Christian boarding and preparatory school that ran for about a decade. Later mergers with the Black Methodist Alice Chapel congregation and a rural church at Ogles broadened its membership.

Lancaster, TX

Organized on May 25, 1868, by the Rev. Andrew Davis, this is among the oldest churches in North Texas, its early members worshiping in the Masonic Hall until a building rose in 1874. That first sanctuary reflected Victorian custom with separate entrances and seating for men and women. A larger church followed in 1911, and the present sanctuary, built in 1957, stands on the site of the original.

Leonard, TX

As the young town of Leonard grew after its 1880 founding, its Methodist congregation—organized just three years later—built this brick sanctuary in 1906. Its Gothic Revival detailing reflected the aspirations of a settled prairie community, and the building was dedicated free of debt in 1909 with a bishop preaching the sermon.

Lovelady, TX

Organized in 1872, the very year the town of Lovelady was founded, this church grew from a Sunday School begun by Mrs. J.R.B. Barbee and was chartered by the circuit rider William Bonner. For years the Methodists worshiped in the 1872 Presbyterian sanctuary they acquired in 1892, before building a new facility here in 1910.

Lufkin, TX

This East Texas congregation traces its roots to Margaret Abney, an Alabama-born Methodist who, finding the nearest church ten miles from Lufkin, opened her home for Sunday Bible study in the 1860s. That small gathering of family and friends became the nucleus of a Lufkin Methodist congregation formally organized in 1882, at first served only once a month by a circuit preacher. As the railroad town grew, so did the church, moving from a shared 200-seat frame building to an 800-seat sanctuary by 1905 and a six-building complex by the 1970s.

Malakoff, TX

This congregation began in 1852 when the Rev. Hezekiah Mitcham gathered six charter members in Henderson County, and by 1854 they had raised one of the county's first Methodist buildings — a log cabin chinked with mud at a settlement called Mitcham Chapel. The nearby town later took the name Malakoff after a Russian fortress made famous in the Crimean War. When the railroad shifted the town 1.5 miles in the early 1880s, the church moved with it, weathering a tornado and rebuildings across the generations.

Marlin, TX

Methodism reached this stretch of the Brazos before Falls County or the town of Marlin even existed, carried by circuit-riding preachers beginning with the Rev. John W. DeVilbiss in 1842. A full-time pastor arrived in 1874, and by 1910 the congregation had raised a brick sanctuary of local Brazos River red clay, its windows imported from Italy. The church became a hub of mission work—one member, Maggie Rogers, served as a missionary in China for nearly four decades.

McKinney, TX

This McKinney congregation began humbly in 1851 as a mission of the Dallas Circuit, meeting in the county courthouse, a Masonic hall, or a shared union building before it built a home of its own in 1876. Becoming an independent station in 1879, it completed the ornate sanctuary that still stands in 1901, only to lose its original steeple to high winds in 1954. It remains the city's last elaborate turn-of-the-century church building.

Midlothian, TX

Methodist worship reached this stretch of Ellis County in the late 1840s, when settlers met in homes and were served by circuit-riding preachers who rode out from Waxahachie. Congregations gathered in pioneer schoolhouses and in early settlements like Hawkins and Lebanon before the flock consolidated in the growing railroad town of Midlothian in 1883. A permanent sanctuary rose in 1902, replaced by a new house of worship in 1966, and many members still descend from those first pioneer families.

Morgan, TX

Organized in 1889, the Morgan Methodist congregation first borrowed the local Baptist church before launching plans at an 1891 revival to build its own sanctuary. The one-room structure grew room by room over the years and blends Carpenter Gothic form with Greek Revival touches, lancet windows, and a belfry added in 1901–02. It was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1983.

Mount Vernon, TX

This Methodist congregation organized in 1855 with thirteen charter members, first meeting in Joe Wylie Parchman's home south of town, then in a Masonic hall, before buying this site and building a meetinghouse in 1875. Successively larger buildings followed—a frame church in 1896–97, the present edifice in 1930, and an education building in 1953. Over its long life the church has sent at least four of its own men into the ministry.

Nacogdoches, TX

Once the Republic of Texas guaranteed religious freedom, the missionary Littleton Fowler preached in Nacogdoches in October 1837 and soon gathered an eighteen-member "Methodist Society" — the first Protestant congregation organized in the town after Texas independence. Led by a succession of pastors, the Methodists became the town's most active Protestants by 1850 and built their first church in 1860. Later buildings burned and were rebuilt, and the congregation helped found a college bible chair and a sister church before completing its present home in 1969.

Navasota, TX

Methodism took root in Navasota in 1853, when the first services were held in the community schoolhouse and a circuit-riding tradition carried the faith through the antebellum and Civil War years. In 1866 the Houston & Texas Central Railroad deeded this land, and a frame chapel named for pioneer circuit rider Robert Alexander rose here, replaced in turn by rock, brick, and finally the 1959 sanctuary. Small but influential, the congregation even hosted the Texas Annual Conference.

Odem, TX

The first recorded church services in Odem were held in a private home in 1909, and by 1910–11 the Methodists had organized under visiting pastors and built a small frame church with just nine charter members. As the congregation and town grew together, a parsonage was added in 1922 and a new sanctuary rose in 1949 using lumber salvaged from the old building. Hurricanes battered the church repeatedly, but each time volunteers and insurance rebuilt it.