First Methodist Church of Longview

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. The First Methodist Church of Longview goes back a long way. A long way.

We're talking 1845, when somebody swung an axe enough times to raise a one-room log meeting house out here in East Texas. Now that little building wasn't just a church. It was a school.

It was a town hall. One room, doing the work of three, which if you think about it, is a very Texas solution to a very frontier problem. For the next several years, this congregation didn't have a preacher standing at the door every Sunday morning.

They had circuit-riding ministers, men who covered territory on horseback, showing up when they could and moving on when they had to. That arrangement held until 1850. Then the congregation settled in a bit, and by 1860 they had packed up and moved to Earpville, right along the Stagecoach Road.

And then something happened that changed the whole equation. The railroad arrived. And in 1874, the congregation moved their church building to Longview to meet it.

From a log room in the woods to a railroad town, and the congregation kept right on growing. New buildings went up over the years as the membership expanded and the programs along with it. By the time this story was set down in 1997, that church had been serving the area for more than a hundred and fifty years.

One room. One congregation. And apparently, no quit in them whatsoever.

What the marker says

This congregation traces its history to 1845, when a one-room log meeting house was erected nearby for a church, school and town hall. The church was served by circuit-riding ministers until 1850. The congregation moved to Earpville on the Stagecoach Road in 1860 and moved their church building to Longview in 1874 after the arrival of the railroad. the church has grown steadily over the years and has erected several new buildings to serve its members and expanding programs. The church continues to serve the area as it has for more than 150 years. (1997)