First Christian Church

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's what I can share about the First Christian Church of Mason County. Now settle in, because this story starts the way all good Texas stories do, with a date, a name, and a piece of ground worth fightin' over. February the fourteenth, 1875.

Valentine's Day, as it happens. That's the day this congregation organized, with a man named M. E.

Gibson stepping up as its first minister. You could say the church was born with a little romance baked right into the calendar. Well.

You could say that. I just did. On October the sixteenth, 1876, the elders of the church went out and purchased the land they needed.

John and Louisa Schuessler were the ones who sold it, and the men signing on the church's behalf were four elders: John R. McGee, A. P.

Boston, Whitmill Holland, and B. F. Gooch.

Four names, one piece of ground, one congregation with a plan. And oh, they had a plan. That plan involved a local contractor by the name of August Brockmann.

Now August Brockmann did not reach for lumber, did not reach for brick. He reached for native sandstone. The kind of stone this part of Texas has been sittin' on since before anybody was countin'.

He built this church out of that stone, and when January of 1879 came around, the structure was completed and dedicated. That's nearly four years from organization to dedication, and every one of those years left a mark. The building stood as it was for a good long while, native sandstone holding its ground the way native sandstone does.

Then came 1926. A man arrived, and not a local man, either. Watkins K.

Phillips, a Philadelphia architect, added the classic revival porch that year. Philadelphia. Think about that for a second.

Somebody looked at this sandstone church on the Texas Hill Country and decided it needed a touch of Philadelphia finishing. And you know what? It's still standing.

The stone, the porch, the whole faithful assembly of it, right there in Mason County, exactly where those four elders planted it back in 1876.

What the marker says

Organized Feb. 14, 1875, with M. E. Gibson as first minister. Land for church was purchased from John and Louisa Schuessler on Oct. 16, 1876, by church elders John R. McGee, A. P. Boston, Whitmill Holland, and B. F. Gooch. This structure, built of native sandstone by local contractor August Brockmann, was completed and dedicated in Jan. 1879. The classic revival porch was added in 1926, by Philadelphia Architect Watkins K. Phillips. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973