Fentress United Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how Duane's gonna pass it along to you. Now, some stories start with a bang, and some start with eighteen people and a borrowed building. This one starts with eighteen people and a borrowed building, and it turned into a hundred years of something that stuck.

October 15, 1905. The Reverend V.G. Thomas stood up in the Caldwell County community of Fentress, and under his leadership, eighteen men and women organized the Fentress Methodist Church, doing so under the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Eighteen people. You could seat that many around a couple of kitchen tables, and yet they meant business. Now, they didn't have a building of their own right off, so they did what neighbors do.

They held their services in the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church building, because a roof is a roof and a congregation is a congregation, and the work goes on either way. Then in 1909, they finished their first sanctuary, built near the Fentress post office. Their own place.

Took a few years, but they got there. Then came 1924, and the congregation picked up and moved to this very location, the spot where the marker stands today. Ten years after that move, the members added Sunday School rooms, because the work of a church, it tends to grow, and growing things need more room.

Over the past several decades, other additions and changes have been made, the kind that come when a community keeps showing up, keeps investing, keeps saying yes, this place matters. And by the time 2005 rolled around, that congregation could look back on one hundred years of worship, music, and educational programs, all carried forward in the traditions laid down by those founding members. Eighteen people with a vision and a borrowed pew.

That's where it started. A hundred years later, it was still going. Some things, you just build to last.

What the marker says

On October 15, 1905, under the leadership of the Rev. V.G. Thomas, 18 men and women organized the Fentress Methodist Church under the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Members initially held services in the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church building until completing their first sanctuary in 1909 near the Fentress post office. In 1924, the congregation moved to this location. Ten years later, members added Sunday School rooms, and over the past several decades, other additions and changes have been made. For 100 years the church has offered worship, music and educational programs in the church traditions begun by the founding members. (2005)