Church of St. John Baptist

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Out here in the Texas Panhandle, where the wind has been workin' overtime since before anyone was keeping records, there sits the Church of St. John Baptist.

And the marker is real clear about what that means: oldest church continuously in use in the earliest Episcopal parish in the entire Texas Panhandle. Not just old. Continuously.

Every Sunday, through the wind and the dry spells and all the rest of it. That's a staying power worth talking about. Now the beginning, as beginnings out here often go, was not glamorous.

The very first services weren't held in any church at all. They were held in the J. B.

McClelland Ranch house, back in November of 1877, led by the Reverend Mister Townsend of the Dallas Diocese. Picture that. A ranch house.

Dirt and cattle probably not far off. And a man from Dallas standing up to hold Episcopal services on the High Plains. That's faith meeting frontier, and it left a mark.

Years passed, as years do. The Reverend W. D.

Sartwell came on as First Vicar, serving from 1890 to 1893, and things started taking shape. A site was given in 1891 by Isaac W. Carhart.

A building was erected in 1893. And a donor clear across the country, a Mrs. Elizabeth Goff of Philadelphia, chose the name.

Saint John Baptist. A woman in Philadelphia naming a church on the Texas Panhandle. The world has always been a smaller and stranger place than we give it credit for.

And then, on April 24, 1893, Bishop A. C. Garrett consecrated that church.

What had started in a ranch house, in the wind and the wide open, was now something permanent. Something that has stayed in use right on up to today. The Panhandle keeps its own kind of time, and this church has been keeping it right along with it.

What the marker says

Oldest church continuously in use (in earliest Episcopal parish) in the Texas Panhandle. The first services were held by the Rev. Mr. Townsend of Dallas Diocese in the J. B. McClelland Ranch house, Nov. 1877. On site given 1891 by Isaac W. Carhart, building was erected in 1893. A donor, Mrs. Elizabeth Goff of Philadelphia, chose the name. The church was consecrated April 24, 1893, by Bishop A. C. Garrett. First Vicar: the Rev. W. D. Sartwell, 1890-93. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1971