Barnhart Cowboy Church

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Out in Irion County, in the little town of Barnhart, there stands a church with a name that ought to make you sit up a little straighter in your saddle. The Barnhart Cowboy Church.

Now the story of how it came to be is exactly the kind of story this country was built on. It starts not with a preacher behind a pulpit, but with neighbors standing outside under an open sky. In 1914, local residents representing several different faiths gathered together for an outdoor community meeting.

Different denominations, different backgrounds, but one shared idea: organize a Union church where all of them could worship together. That right there is something worth holdin' onto. Now once the decision was made, somebody had to actually build the thing.

And this is where the story picks up some color. The work fell to cowboys. Cowboys from the area ranches, rolling up their sleeves and swinging hammers instead of roping cattle, all working under the supervision of a man named W.

H. Parker and his brother-in-law Henry Barker. You can imagine the sound of it.

The creak of timber, the ring of nails being driven home, the kind of work that leaves something standing long after the men who built it are gone. It took a few years, but in 1917 the building was completed. And folks took to calling it what it was: the Cowboy Church.

Since those early days of Barnhart, members of various Christian denominations have come through those doors and worshiped side by side. That tradition, started by a handful of neighbors in 1914 who just decided to quit waiting and get to it, has held. A church built by cowboys, for a whole community.

Out here in West Texas, that's not a tall tale. That's just how it was done.

What the marker says

Local residents, representing several faiths, gathered for an outdoor community meeting in 1914 to organize this Union church. The sanctuary was constructed by cowboys from area ranches, working under the supervision of W. H. Parker and his brother-in-law Henry Barker. Completed in 1917, the building was known as the Cowboy Church. Since the early days of Barnhart, members of various Christian denominations have worshiped here together. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981