First Methodist Church of Pittsburg

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the First Methodist Church of Pittsburg, Camp County. Now settle in, because this one goes back a ways. We're talking 1857, and the Reverend J.

W. Harvey Hamill is riding into a young Texas settlement with a purpose. He organizes a church, right there from the ground up, and the charter members include some notable names.

Major and Mrs. W. H.

Pitts, and others of the Pitts family, the very family for whom this town of Pittsburg was named. So from the very beginning, this congregation was woven tight into the fabric of the place itself. Now, these early Methodists didn't have much to work with in the way of a building.

They worshipped first in a log structure. Simple, plain, and probably drafty, but it held their hymns just fine. Then came a step up, a two-story frame building shared with the Masonic Lodge.

Two organizations, one roof, which takes a particular kind of neighborly patience if you ask me. But this congregation had its eye on something bigger. In 1888 and 1889, they erected a larger frame sanctuary.

That was progress. That was the community putting its back into it. Still, it wasn't the last word.

Come 1904 and 1905, during the pastorate of the Reverend E. L. Shettles, they went brick.

Prairie style, solid, built to last, and it did last, because that's the very church standing at this spot right now. Then in 1953, the educational wing was added. And by 1957, the fellowship's centennial year, one hundred years on from that first organizing meeting with Reverend Hamill, membership had reached five hundred and forty-six souls.

A century of Sundays, a century of this community showing up. That's the kind of story a building holds in its walls.

What the marker says

The charter members of this church, organized in 1857 by the Rev. J. W. Harvey Hamill, included Major and Mrs. w. H. Pitts and others in the Pitts family, for whom this town was named. The congregation worshipped first in a log structure, then shared a 2-story frame building with the Masonic Lodge. A larger frame sanctuary was erected in 1888-89. It was replaced by this brick prairie style church, constructed (1904-05) during the pastorate of the Rev. E. L. Shettles. In 1953 the educational wing was added. In 1957, the fellowship's centennial year, membership was 546. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976