DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before there were walls, before there were pews, before there was so much as a roof overhead, the Presbyterians of Kingsville were holding services under mesquite trees. That's where the tradition starts.
Out in the open, under that tough, scrubby canopy that only Texas can call shade. But a congregation needs a home, and on January 8, 1905, they took a step toward finding one. The Reverend A.H.P.
McCurdy gathered several men and women together, and they held formal services right there at the Kingsville Lumber Company. Not a chapel. Not a sanctuary.
A lumber company. Which, come to think of it, is a fine place for a church to begin, surrounded by the raw material of things yet to be built. Now, a congregation meeting at a lumber yard still needs land, and that's where two names come in that carry some weight in this part of Texas.
Henrietta King and the Kleberg Town and Improvement Company donated land at this very site to the congregation. With that gift secured, the church dedicated its first sanctuary in April of 1906. From mesquite trees to a proper house of worship, in just over a year.
They weren't wasting any Sundays. The congregation kept building on that foundation, and in 1956 they raised the sanctuary that stands here today. And the church didn't turn inward once the walls went up.
It remains, right now, a significant part of Kingsville's religious and social community, reachin' out in ecumenical endeavors with other churches across this town. Started under the trees. Still standing.
Still reaching.
What the marker says
Tradition holds that Presbyterians in Kingsville first held services under mesquite trees before formally organizing on January 8, 1905. That day, the Rev. A.H.P. McCurdy led several men and women in services at the Kingsville Lumber Company. Henrietta King and the Kleberg Town and Improvement Company donated land at this site to the congregation, which dedicated its first sanctuary in April 1906. The congregation built its present sanctuary in 1956. Today, the church remains a significant part of Kingsville’s religious and social community by sharing in ecumenical endeavors with other churches. (2006)