Evans Chapel Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it to you straight with a little something extra on top. Out along Mustang Creek in Leon County, there's a church that has been standing watch over the same two acres since 1886, and the story of how it got there goes back even further than that. Settlers from the old South started making their way into this part of Texas around 1840, and they came looking for land, for community, for something to hold onto.

The William P. Evans family was among them, coming all the way from Alabama and putting down roots here in 1845. The community that grew up around them came to bear their name.

Evans Chapel. It has a quiet kind of ring to it, doesn't it. Like it was always meant to be there.

By the mid-1880s, the people of Evans Chapel Community had made up their minds. They needed a church. They needed a new school.

Both things, and they weren't waiting. W. J.

Cox gave two acres along Mustang Creek to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and in 1886, that original frame building went up, wood siding and all, sitting alongside a new cemetery and a new school. For more than three decades, that building served its congregation. And then 1919 came along.

Fire damaged the church. Now, here is where the story gets interesting, because what the congregation did next tells you everything you need to know about the people of Evans Chapel. They didn't rebuild something new.

They didn't change a single thing. They erected an identical church, the same lines, the same character, the same presence on those same two acres along Mustang Creek. And that church still serves today.

Some things, you don't fix. You just keep.

What the marker says

EVANS CHAPEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH The Evans Chapel Church was built in 1886 on two acres along Mustang Creek given by W. J. Cox to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, south. Arrival of settlers from the old south to this area began about 1840. The William P. Evans family settled here from Alabama in 1845 and the community came to bear their name. Residents of Evans Chapel Community decided they needed a church and a new school in the mid-1880s. The church was established with an adjoining cemetery and a new school was built. The original frame building with wood siding served until 1919 when it was damaged by a fire. The congregation erected an identical church that still serves today. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK - 2014