Anderson Campground

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere out near the Brushy Creek community, there's a piece of ground that has a story soaked right into the soil. It all starts with a spring.

A good, honest spring, the kind that drew settlers in the 1850s the way a campfire draws moths on a cold night. People put down roots here, built a community, and then, in 1873, the local Methodist congregation decided this land deserved something more than ordinary use. They set it aside as a religious campground.

Now, that kind of decision doesn't come cheap, even back then. The congregation went out and purchased the land from a man named E. S.

Jamison, out of Galveston County. The price? Sixty dollars.

In gold. Not paper, not promises. Gold.

There's something about that detail that just sits with you. The following year, they got to work on the tabernacle. And they built it the way people built things when they meant for it to last.

Pine beams. Sweet gum piers. Wooden pegs holding the whole thing together, no nails needed to make something true.

A spring, a congregation, sixty dollars in gold, and a tabernacle built to stand. Out near Brushy Creek, that's exactly what they did.

What the marker says

Located on a spring near Brushy Creek community, this area was first settled in the 1850s. In 1873 it was set aside for use as a religious campground by members of the local Methodist congregation. The land was purchased from E. S. Jamison of Galveston County for sixty dollars in gold. The tabernacle was built the following year of pine beams, sweet gum piers, and wooden pegs.