First Methodist Church

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker, so let's talk about something that was standing in Alpine long before most of us were a thought in anybody's mind. Way out in Brewster County, where the sky goes on forever and the land doesn't apologize for a thing, there's a church with a story worth slowing down for. Now, before there was even a building to speak of, there was a man on horseback.

A circuit-riding preacher by the name of Reverend S. G. Kilgore, covering ground the way those preachers did: town to town, dust in his teeth, Bible in his saddlebag.

In 1884, Kilgore organized the Methodist congregation right there in Alpine. No walls yet. Just faith and a man who wasn't going to let the distance talk him out of it.

Then, five years on, in 1889, the residents of Alpine went and built something to show for it. A church. Adobe, the way you build when the land itself is your supplier.

And here's the thing that makes this place something more than a single congregation's story: the Methodists didn't keep it to themselves. Baptists came through those doors. Presbyterians too.

Out on the frontier, you didn't turn away a neighbor who needed a pew. That original adobe church, or at least the altar portion of it, is still standing. Still there.

The rest of the world kept moving, and that old adobe just held its ground. That's Alpine for you.

What the marker says

Built in 1889 by Alpine residents. Altar portion, original adobe church remains. Here met Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians. Methodist congregaton organized by circuit-riding preacher, Rev. S.G. Kilgore, in 1884. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965.