DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and now here's how Duane tells it. In 1882, a man named Reverend Donald Frazier gathered nine charter members together and organized the First Presbyterian Church of Anson. Nine people.
That's it. That's your founding congregation. You could seat them all at a single long table and still have room for the biscuits.
But small beginnings have a way of growing into something that lasts, and this church did just that. They went through one sanctuary, then another, and by 1929 they had built themselves a third. The one standing today.
A simple structure, the marker calls it, vernacular in style, with minimal brick detailing and stained glass windows catching whatever light Jones County sees fit to offer. Nothing showy. Nothing that needs to be.
The kind of building that just quietly does its job. And for decades, it did. Then the 1970s came, and membership began to decline.
Slowly, the way these things tend to go. Not all at once, but steadily, until 1984, when the congregation was dissolved. What Reverend Frazier and those nine souls started in 1882 had reached its end.
But here's the thing about a building that's been cared for. It doesn't have to end when the congregation does. That church, the third sanctuary, the 1929 structure with its quiet brick and its colored glass, was donated to the city of Anson.
For use as a community museum. So the story that started with nine people and a preacher now belongs to everybody. That's not a bad way to finish.
What the marker says
The Rev. Donald Frazier and nine charter members organized the First Presbyterian Church of Anson in 1882. This structure, the congregation's third sanctuary, was built in 1929. After membership declined in the 1970s, the congregation was dissolved in 1984. The building was donated to the city of Anson for use as a community museum. A simple vernacular structure, it features minimal brick detailing and stained glass windows. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1990.