DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker at First Presbyterian Church in Kilgore tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it's written. Way back in 1850, out in the rural Danville community, a congregation came together and called themselves Gum Spring Presbyterian Church. Now that is a name that carries the smell of pine timber and creek water — a small church, a rural flock, rooted in a place most maps barely bothered to find.
But congregations, like people, have a way of moving toward where the future is heading, and in 1874 this one pulled up stakes and made its way to Kilgore. Somewhere along the road it shed the old name too, and became First Presbyterian Church. You could say it grew into its new address.
Then came the 1930s, and with them the oil boom — and if you know anything about East Texas in that era, you know the ground itself seemed to be trying to tell you something. Oil wells rose up around the church property at the corner of South and Rusk streets, hemming in that earlier structure on all sides. Picture that for a moment: a congregation trying to hold Sunday services while the derricks go to work right outside the windows.
Out of all that noise and upheaval, something new got built. A sanctuary — the one that stands today — rose up as a direct result of that oil boom. It went up in the Gothic style, which is a particular kind of ambition in architecture: soaring lines, stone presence, a building that seems to be reaching for something just out of reach.
The congregation gave it a large stained glass window, and a tri-partite Gothic-arched entry — three arches framing the way in, like the church wanted you to feel the weight of the threshold before you ever crossed it. From a rural spring in 1850 to oil-ringed city blocks to Gothic arches catching the East Texas light — that's a long road for one congregation, and every mile of it is set in stone.
What the marker says
Organized in 1850 as Gum Spring Presbyterian Church in the rural Danville community, this congregation moved to Kilgore in 1874 and later changed its name to First Presbyterian Church. built as a result of the 1930s oil boom, this sanctuary replaced an earlier structure at the corner of South and Rusk streets, where oil wells surrounded church property. Reflecting the Gothic style of architecture, the building features a large stained glass window and a tri-partite Gothic-arched entry. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1989