Westward Expansion

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.

Paris, TX

This Paris, Texas, congregation traces its roots to 1843, when the Rev. James Graham organized an early Methodist church in the area that became Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, South. After the devastating Paris fire of 1916, it merged with Lamar Avenue Methodist Church to form a single downtown congregation in 1918 under the Rev. Robert P. Shuler.

Port Lavaca, TX

Organized in 1841 during the days of the Republic of Texas, this Methodist congregation grew up on the storm-battered Gulf coast at Port Lavaca. Its buildings were repeatedly claimed by hurricanes — the 1898 sanctuary even sheltered the salvaged bell of the ruined Indianola church before itself falling to the 1945 storm — yet the congregation rebuilt each time. A new complex rose in 1958 and a sanctuary in 1975.

Rising Star, TX

When schoolteacher James Irby gathered a handful of worshipers in a log building east of town in 1879, Rising Star was barely a settlement. The little Methodist congregation moved several times before Lucy Anderson donated ground for a frame church in 1888, and the 1920 oil boom finally swelled its ranks enough to build the brick sanctuary completed in 1926. Across more than a century it became a seedbed for ministers and missionaries.

Roby, TX

The oldest active church in Fisher County, this Methodist congregation dates to the county's founding years, meeting first in a settler's home under a circuit-riding preacher and organizing formally in 1886. Before its first sanctuary rose in 1889, worshipers gathered in the county courthouse. Successive church buildings have stood on the same site given by the town's founding families.

Rockwall, TX

This Methodist congregation grew out of worship services held by area pioneers in the home of Mrs. Hugh Shaw and was formally organized in 1856, years before Rockwall County itself was created. Meeting first in the Masonic lodge, the small fellowship built its first steepled frame sanctuary in 1874 and gained its first full-time pastor by 1887 as the settlement matured.

Royse City, TX

Organized in 1887 as the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, this fellowship was served by circuit rider the Rev. James McDugald, who rode among Royse City and several neighboring communities. Services met in a schoolhouse until land on Church Street was acquired in 1890 for the town's first church building, erected in 1904. The congregation grew alongside the young North Texas town.

Rusk, TX

Organized in 1849, only a few years after Texas joined the Union, this Methodist congregation in Rusk was first served by circuit-riding minister Henderson D. Palmer, who had been licensed to preach in Nacogdoches County in 1838. Three successive sanctuaries have stood on the same site, from the first frame building of 1851 to the present structure completed in 1920. For well over a century the congregation has anchored community life in this Cherokee County seat.

San Angelo, TX

Organized in 1882 on what the marker calls an Indian-menaced frontier, this San Angelo congregation grew out of the religious fervor of the 1870s and the collapse of the nearby community of Ben Ficklin after a devastating flood. Its first frame building, topped by a cupola, was said to be the earliest Protestant church house between Mason and El Paso, led by rugged frontier preacher Andrew Jackson Potter. Successive buildings — an 'Akron'-style masonry church in 1904 and the present Gothic edifice in 1950 — trace the town's growth from outpost to city.

San Augustine, TX

In October 1837, only months into the life of the Republic of Texas, Methodist missionary Littleton Fowler arrived in San Augustine and within two weeks had land, trustees, and a builder for a church. The cornerstone laid in January 1838 drew a crowd of hundreds and speeches from Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk, and Fowler proudly called it the first Protestant cornerstone west of the Sabine in the young republic. Methodists have worshiped in the same block of Main Street ever since.

Sherman, TX

Sherman's first Methodist congregation grew from the labors of circuit-riding preachers who crossed this frontier even before Grayson County was formally organized, and it was established in 1859 with the Rev. J. M. Binkley. Its first members worshipped under a brush arbor on what became the public square before raising a frame church in 1860. Through fire, an opera-house exile, and a series of ever-larger sanctuaries, the congregation remained a hub of Methodist life in North Texas for well over a century.

Sulphur Springs, TX

Founded in 1850 by the Rev. Pleas B. Bailey, this Methodist congregation raised the first church building in Sulphur Springs around 1852, on a lot ringed by the mineral springs that gave the town its name. In its early decades it shared space with Baptists, hosted the 1867 gathering that organized what became the North Texas Conference, and supported Central College, a Methodist school that operated locally in the late 19th century. The present sanctuary, the congregation's fifth building, rose in 1917.

Taft, TX

Organized in December 1910 as part of a circuit spanning Taft, Gregory, Portland and Ingleside, this Methodist congregation shared halls and school buildings with local Presbyterians before erecting the first permanent church in Taft in 1921 on land given by the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. The two denominations parted in 1923, and a new Methodist building followed in 1924, with a fresh sanctuary opening on Easter Sunday, 1949. Its members even pooled scarce funds to help launch Southern Methodist University in 1911.

Tenaha, TX

This Methodist congregation was among the first institutions founded in Tenaha after the town sprang up in 1886 as a railhead for the Houston East & West Texas Railroad. Gathered from the older Woods and Ramah communities, its members were served for years by circuit-riding preachers and built their first sanctuary in 1890. The church gained its first full-time minister in 1946 and has long emphasized missionary work, with founders' descendants still worshiping here.

Trinity, TX

Organized in 1872, the very year the town of Trinity was founded, this Methodist congregation was established by the Rev. John Woolam, a circuit rider who preached one Sunday a month among a dozen or more stations across the region. Worship began in a general store and a one-room log schoolhouse before the congregation raised its first sanctuary in the 1880s, expanding as the town grew and completing the present building in 1928.

Van Alstyne, TX

This congregation grew from an 1847 Bible-study class held in a settler's log cabin, gathering strength through a legendary three-week revival in 1855 before moving with the railroad to the new town of Van Alstyne in 1873. It hosted the first district Epworth League of the Southern Methodist Church in 1894 and, in 1912, an address by former president Theodore Roosevelt; one of Texas' earliest Boy Scout troops formed here in 1917, the same year the present sanctuary was dedicated. The modern name followed the national Methodist union of 1968.

Waco, TX

Founded in 1850 by the Rev. Joseph P. Sneed and 23 charter members, this was the very first church in the new townsite of Waco, meeting at first in a log cabin. In a spirit of frontier cooperation, the Methodists shared their building with the town's fledgling Baptist and Presbyterian congregations. The fellowship moved several times over the following century before settling at its present site in 1963.

Waxahachie, TX

In the spring of 1849, a Methodist society of ten gathered in a settler's cabin in the new town of Waxahachie, raising their first church three years later. An 1856 building was shared with Presbyterian and Baptist neighbors, and in 1866 the site hosted the organizing of the Central Texas Conference. Successive buildings rose, burned, and were rebuilt as the congregation endured the Depression and flourished at mid-century.

Weatherford, TX

Organized in 1857 as Weatherford took shape on the North Texas frontier, this Methodist congregation built its first meetinghouse in 1867 only to lose it to an 1886 tornado. Under the Reverend James Mackey the members raised a new Victorian Gothic sanctuary, its elaborate tower dedicated in 1893, later extended with matching limestone. The building has anchored the community's spiritual life for well over a century.

Wharton, TX

Methodism reached this part of Texas as early as 1835 with a camp meeting at Egypt, and the Wharton congregation began meeting in 1859, organizing formally in 1865. It built its first church on Caney Street in 1885 and moved to Fulton Street in 1898, only to lose one sanctuary to an 1909 storm and its replacement—along with the church's early records—to a 1925 fire. The congregation settled at its present site in 1972 as several smaller area Methodist churches merged into it.

Wichita Falls, TX

Wichita Falls's first congregation gathered in March 1881 in the home of Alfred H. Harris, where six charter members and pastor F. O. Miller met before moving to a log schoolhouse and then the courthouse. As the young railroad town swelled, the Methodists outgrew two sanctuaries before completing this Gothic Revival building in 1928, designed by Houston architect William Ward Watkin. Its rise tracks the transformation of a frontier settlement into a North Texas city.

Grapevine, TX

In 1854 circuit-riding lay preacher Nathan Hudgins came from Alabama to Grapevine and began holding services in his own home, work that was both strenuous and dangerous on the Texas frontier. He helped organize the Grapevine Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1866, and in 1872 he and his wife deeded two acres for a house of worship. A stained-glass window installed in 1901 honored Hudgins in the year of his death, and the merging denominations gave the church its present name in 1968.

Spring Branch, TX

This homestead at the springs of Rebecca Creek sat on land granted to Texas pioneer James Baker for his service in the Texas War for Independence. German immigrant John Heinrich Fischer bought the tract in 1860 — likely running cattle there as early as 1857 — and raised his family on its vital water source. His daughter Anna and her husband William Klinger owned the homestead from 1881.

Longview, TX

In the early 1830s, families from Alabama settled this corner of East Texas and built the community they called Pine Tree, anchoring it with a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation. Before 1860, A.T. Castleberry II set aside an acre and a half of his land for a burial ground, and the graves of church founders and neighbors soon gathered there. Passed into the keeping of the Fisher family through marriage, the cemetery grew to some 2.7 acres and roughly 250 graves, the oldest dating to 1860.

Roby, TX

This region was crossed by an old Indian trail running from Mexico to the Texas frontier settlements, and in 1856 Colonel Robert E. Lee — then commanding the U.S. Second Cavalry, years before he led the Confederate army — campaigned against Native peoples here. Fisher County was carved from Young and Bexar territories, created in 1876 and organized in 1886, and named for Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Secretary of the Navy of the Republic. Its seat, Roby, took its name from local landowners.

Matagorda, TX

Samuel Rhoads Fisher was a founding figure of the Texas Republic—an early colonist, a signer of the 1836 Declaration of Independence, and secretary of the fledgling Republic's navy—who had this coastal house built for his family in 1832. His widow, Ann, lived here until 1860, and the home passed through a succession of planters, ranchers, and a schoolmaster who added a classroom for his children, the Gottschalk family holding it until 1977. With its two-story open porches and side-gabled roof, it remains a Matagorda landmark.

Austin, TX

Fiskville grew up along Little Walnut Creek just outside Austin, seeded by pioneers like Josiah Fisk in 1846 and Edward Zimmerman in 1854. By the time Zimmerman became postmaster in 1873, more than 150 people farmed this dispersed community, which supported cotton gins—including one owned by G.W. Corzine, a formerly enslaved man—and other small businesses. Absorbed into Austin as the city grew, the settlement survives today in its cemetery, Zimmerman's 1854 home, and the street names that still carry its memory.

Crockett, TX

In 1837 President Sam Houston authorized Houston County, the very first county created by the young Republic of Texas, and veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto named it for their commander and its seat for their Tennessee friend David Crockett. The first courthouse here was a log fortress against Indian raids, and a remarkable run of fire and misfortune destroyed courthouse after courthouse across the next century. Five successive buildings tell the story of a frontier county seat repeatedly rebuilding itself.

Dallas, TX

The Bast family journeyed from Kentucky to join the Peters Colony, and in 1859 Abraham Bast donated an acre for a nondenominational church, school, and burial ground beside Five Mile Creek. Neighbors James Horton and David King added land as well. Among the burials are area pioneers and two Confederate soldiers, and the cemetery — with hundreds of graves — remains in use today.

Clarksville, TX

On March 2, 1836, delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, breaking from Mexico. Of the fifty-nine signers, five came from Red River County — Richard Ellis, who presided over the convention, Robert Hamilton, Albert Hamilton Latimer, Samuel Price Carson, and Collin McKinney — more than from any other old district. These men went on to shape the government of the young Republic, and one, McKinney, lent his name to both a county and a city.

Dallas, TX

Church Goforth owned and farmed this White Rock Creek land from 1888 to 1911, growing cotton in the fertile bottomlands that would later lie beneath White Rock Lake. Dallas bought his 464 acres in 1909 to build the reservoir, and between 1935 and 1939 the Civilian Conservation Corps raised a picnic pavilion and a flag-pole-crowned overlook that gave the hill its name. For decades it hosted WRR radio broadcasts, Goforth family reunions, concerts, protests, and snow-day sledding, becoming a beloved urban gathering place.

Decatur, TX

Flat Rock was settled in the 1850s by Moses Ball and other pioneers, its name drawn from flat stones that formed a local landmark. Tradition holds the first burial in its cemetery was an American Indian and the second a small girl who died as her family migrated through; the oldest legible stones date to 1878, amid many unmarked graves. Ex-Texas Ranger George W. Stevens deeded the ground for the cemetery in 1890, and the community faded after 1914.

Flatonia, TX

This congregation began around 1855 as Lane's Chapel, gathered by Alabama settlers—among them William Menefee, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence—who first met in a log cabin and then a church-school building at Pine Springs. When the town of Flatonia rose on the railroad in 1873 and the old chapel burned the next year, worshippers followed their community into town and built anew in 1879. Its path mirrors the westward drift of settlers and the pull of the new rail town.

Flemingsburg, KY

Kentucky's 26th county, Fleming, was cut from Mason County in 1798 and named for Col. John Fleming, a Revolutionary War officer who came to mark and improve land here in 1776 and built the area's second station in 1788. He worked alongside fellow pioneers John Finley, Michael Cassidy, and his half-brother George Stockton, who owned the land and laid out Flemingsburg in 1796.

Comanche, TX

In 1854, when a boy named Martin V. Fleming camped in this grove with his father, he ducked behind this very oak to escape a raiding party riding through the trees. Decades later, as paving crews moved to cut the tree down, the grown "Uncle Mart" faced them off with his gun and saved it. The Fleming Oak still stands as a living witness to Comanche County's frontier days.

Canadian, TX

In the 1870s and '80s, this stop northwest of present-day Canadian offered rest and mail service to wagon trains, buffalo-hide caravans, and cattle herds crossing the Panhandle. Run by former buffalo hunter-scout Ed Fletcher and his partners — all seasoned frontiersmen — the station was a sod-roofed log cabin flanked by a brush arbor and a pump. The area's first election was held here in 1882, on ground that would soon become Hemphill County.

Waco, TX

This burial ground began in 1868 with the grave of early settler Sample Carrigan and grew when Catherine Carrigan Fletcher set aside three acres as a public cemetery in 1873. It served the scattered farming communities of the McLennan and Falls County countryside, from Golinda to Satin. A number of Civil War veterans rest among its graves.

Abilene, TX

In 1878, James Robert Fletcher led his family and a small herd from Granbury to this West Texas spot, drawn by a spring-fed creek, timber, and grass. He planted sorghum for his cattle in the first spring — among the earliest cultivated fields in Taylor County — and even shipped Merino sheep from California in a bold if unsuccessful venture. His son Lorenzo, who as a boy marked a moonlit trail to school with buffalo skulls, took over the ranch and passed it down through generations that still hold it today.

Lindale vicinity, TX

When Thomas and Frances Maria Flewellen came to east Texas from Georgia and Arkansas in the 1850s, they bought well over a thousand acres and built a large farm worked by enslaved people. Frances Maria's 1861 burial began this family cemetery, which grew as the Flewellen and Thweatt families intermarried and buried their dead here across the plantation era and beyond. The many graves of women and children under 40 quietly record how hard life could be in 19th-century Smith County.

Quitman, TX

Freemasonry followed Anglo settlers into frontier Texas, and this lodge petitioned for its charter in 1852, taking the name Flora on Christmas Day of that year. Early members met in a combined Presbyterian church and lodge hall built in 1855, working by candlelight and kerosene until electricity arrived in 1917, and rebuilding after an 1854 fire destroyed their charter and furnishings. The plain details of their record — 30-cent candles bought by the pound, Saturday-morning meetings paused for preaching — capture the texture of pioneer community life.

Mesquite, TX

David and Julia Florence built the first part of this frame ranch house in 1871–72 after moving from Van Zandt County, and by the 1890s their homestead — dressed up with elaborate wood trim on its gallery — spread across 730 acres. Their son and his wife carried on the operation, known as Meadow View Farm, into the 20th century. The house is a survivor of the ranching life that dominated post–Civil War Texas.

Floresville, TX

This land began as ranch country for Mission Espada and Rancho de las Cabras, granted by the Spanish crown and once known as Chayopines for the Native people who lived there. By 1756 Juan José Flores kept an adobe house at a river crossing where travelers camped overnight, and that hacienda — encased within a brick house built around it in 1844 — is thought to be the oldest home in Wilson County. Nearby lie the stone foundations of an early-1800s chapel and its campo santo, and the rancho passed through three generations of the Flores family.

Floresville, TX

Methodists in Floresville organized their congregation in October 1875 at the home of the Agee family, with only six charter members and a circuit-riding minister as their first pastor. In the early years they worshiped wherever they could—homes, the county courthouse, a private academy—before completing a sanctuary in 1885 that a storm soon destroyed. Rebuilt and merged over the years with neighboring congregations, the church has served this Wilson County seat for well over a century.

Flower Mound, TX

Rising some fifty feet above the North Texas prairie and crowned each spring with wildflowers, this dome-shaped hill gave its name to the settlers who gathered around it. It stood on land that the Wichita people inhabited before W. S. Peters's colonists arrived in the 1840s under grants from the Republic of Texas. Local lore held that no building or tree ever took root on its summit, and a Presbyterian church first put the name "Flower Mound" on the map in 1854. Long a private farm landmark, the mound now anchors a suburb spreading out from Dallas and Fort Worth.

Flower Mound, TX

Matthew and Isabella Donald reached Denton County in 1854, and that year Matthew — a farmer who also served as the first pastor of Flower Mound Presbyterian Church — set aside ten acres for a cemetery, campground, and church, formally deeding the land in 1879. The burial ground came into use almost immediately, its earliest marked grave dating to 1873, and it gathered the founding families of the area, including Donald's brother Robert, a church deacon and state legislator. In 1950 the Dyer Family Cemetery was relocated here ahead of the building of Lake Grapevine.

Flower Mound, TX

Organized in 1854 by the Rev. Matthew B. Donald, this was the first Presbyterian congregation in Denton County, taking shape when the region was still frontier settlement. Worshippers first met in one another's homes, then built a log church in 1857–58, later replaced by a frame building and, in 1901, the present sanctuary. The founding minister rests in the church cemetery beside the community he gathered.

Floydada, TX

Floyd County was carved from Young and Bexar territories in 1876 and formally organized in 1890. It honors Dolphin Ward Floyd, a captain who died defending the Alamo in 1836. The county seat began as Floyd City in 1890 and has been Floydada since 1892.

Richardson, TX

In 1855 John B. Floyd of Kentucky bought 900 acres of North Texas prairie and settled his family here, setting aside an acre in the 1860s for a family burial ground. Its early graves tell frontier stories in miniature: strangers' children lost to diphtheria and a bandit killed at Floyd's Inn. Floyd and his wife Julia Ann lie here still, their pioneer plot long since bordered by the modern Restland Memorial Park.

Floydada, TX

Just a year after Floyd City — later renamed Floydada — became the seat of Floyd County, eighteen men organized this Masonic lodge in April 1891, receiving their charter that December. Early meetings gathered above a general store while the town found its feet on the South Plains. Over the decades lodge members filled county offices and civic organizations, growing right alongside the community.

Linden, TX

In 1854 Killis S. Floyd donated four acres for a Missionary Baptist congregation, and the Floyds' Hill Church was organized that December with fifteen charter members. Services first met in a pioneer family's home, then in a log church of 1855 and a frame building raised about 1858 with the help of enslaved labor; Black members worshiped here until Floyd gave land for a separate church. The adjoining cemetery, with some 200 known graves, holds the settlers who came from Alabama and Georgia in the 1850s, and though regular services ended in 1926, descendants still gather each year.

Westphalia, IA

Built in 1872, this house was raised by the Flusche brothers in Westphalia, Iowa—a community whose very name announces its founding by German Catholic immigrants. Across the mid-nineteenth century, German settlers established tight-knit farming villages throughout the Midwest, carrying their language, faith, and building traditions west. The Flusche house is a survivor of that immigrant settlement era.

Fluvanna, TX

Fluvanna was born of a 1907 real estate venture, named by its surveyor for his home county in Virginia. When the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railroad reached the townsite in 1909, settlers marked the occasion with a three-day picnic and even hauled buildings over from nearby Light, Texas. The town thrived as a cattle-shipping and cotton point until the railroad ceased operating here in 1942, settling into life as a farming community.

Fluvanna, TX

Founded in 1915 by D. A. Jones and John A. Stavely, the Fluvanna Mercantile Company was a classic West Texas general store, its shelves of clothing, groceries, hardware, millinery and patent medicines freighted in by the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railroad. During the Depression cash gave way to barter as neighbors traded cream and eggs for "store-bought" supplies.

Crowell, TX

Foard County was assembled in 1891 from pieces of four neighboring counties as settlement thickened across northwest Texas. It honors Robert L. Foard (1831–1898), a Confederate officer and prominent Columbus lawyer. The county seat of Crowell grew after a railroad reached it in 1908, tying this ranching country into the wider Texas economy.

Crowell, TX

By 1909 Foard County, created in 1891, had outgrown its first courthouse, and voters approved bonds for a grander one. Completed in 1910, the Classical Revival building rose with paired Corinthian porticoes and a statue of Lady Justice atop a domed cupola. A 1942 tornado tore away the statue and cupola, but the repaired courthouse still holds its original form.

Hondo, TX

This store-residence was built in D'Hanis around 1878 by John Fohn, a native of Prussia, and served not only as a general mercantile but also as a site for local elections and a Justice of the Peace court. In 1897 Rolf Frerichs bought it from the Fohn estate and moved it to this location, where his son-in-law C. J. Bless ran a store until 1939. The Medina Electric Cooperative later used the building until 1963.

Follett, TX

Follett started life as "Ivanhoe" just across the line in Oklahoma, then chased the railroad, moving twice before settling on the Texas side in 1917. Renamed for a railroad surveyor, it became a gateway to the Panhandle's wheat-and-cattle "Golden Spread." Farming and ranching carried the town until oil and gas arrived in the 1950s.

Follett, TX

Follett's Methodist congregation began in 1903 among panhandle pioneers served by horseback circuit riders, first gathering in Ivanhoe, Oklahoma. Following the railroad, the church moved to the new town of Follett, Texas, in 1917 and built a series of homes over the century — a basement church, a 1924 sanctuary, and a 1961 building on Highway 15.

Follett, TX

Methodism reached this corner of the Panhandle with circuit rider Grant L. Hayes, who founded churches at Ivanhoe, Oklahoma, in 1902 and at Stillwater, Texas, in 1904. After Follett sprang up on the Santa Fe Railroad in 1917, the two congregations merged there. The Old Ivanhoe church bell, cast in Ohio in 1907, followed the flock — installed in the first church tower in 1924 and carried into the modern church as a link to the pioneer past.