First Christian Church of Granbury

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Way out in Hood County, the First Christian Church of Granbury has a story that runs a lot deeper than most folks realize when they drive past. It starts back in the 1870s, when this congregation was first organized, and it didn't come together by accident.

Two brothers, Addison and Randolph Clark, were right there helping it find its footing. Now if those names sound familiar, there's good reason. In 1873, those same Clark brothers helped their father, Joseph A.

Clark, establish a college: the Add-Ran Male and Female College, set down at Thorp Spring, just three and a half miles northwest of where you're sitting right now. That institution, in time, became Texas Christian University of Fort Worth. Think about that.

The same family that helped get this little congregation off the ground in Granbury had a hand in building one of the major universities in the state of Texas. Addison and Randolph didn't just lend their names to that effort either; they shared responsibilities as the first pastors of this very church. Preaching and teaching, right here and out at Thorp Spring both.

Then comes 1889, and the men of the fellowship decided it was time to make something permanent. They erected a frame sanctuary on property purchased from D.C. Cogdell.

A real building. A real home. The congregation kept on, year after year, decade after decade, and then in 1969, Lake Granbury was completed.

What a lake does to a community, well, this church felt it. Growth, rapid growth, arriving right alongside the new water lapping at the edge of town. From two brothers helping their father plant a college in the 1870s to a congregation still expanding after 1969, that is one long, unbroken thread of a story, and Granbury has been holding onto both ends of it the whole time.

What the marker says

This church was organized in the 1870's with the aid of Addison and Randolph Clark. In 1873 they helped their father Joseph A. Clark establish the Add-Ran Male and Female College at Thorp Spring (3.8 miles northwest), which later became Texas Christian University of Fort Worth. The Clark Brothers shared responsibilities as the first pastors. In 1889 the men of the fellowship erected a frame sanctuary on property purchased from D.C. Cogdell. This congregation has grown rapidly since the completion of Lake Granbury in 1969.