DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and friend, this one's worth every mile. Now, a circuit rider is exactly what it sounds like: a preacher on horseback, covering ground most folks wouldn't cross on a dare. The Rev.
Lamb Trimble was one of those men, and in 1880 he rode into a place called Red Gap — two miles west of where you're sitting right now — and organized a Methodist church. Four charter members. That's all.
Four people gathered in the home of a sheep rancher named M.V. Mitchell, and they called it a congregation. One year later, when the city of Cisco was founded, that little congregation picked up and moved with it.
They held services in the schoolhouse — because that's what you did when the sanctuary hadn't been built yet — and they made do, the way West Texas people tend to make do. Then came 1883, and the members built a sanctuary right here on this very site. The land itself was donated by a company purchasing right-of-way property for the railroad.
So this church got its foothold on railroad ground. Fitting, maybe, for a congregation that had already done its share of moving. Things grew.
By 1889 a building program got underway, completed during the pastorate of the Rev. T.C. Ragsdale, and when the dust settled the structure had doubled in size.
A parsonage went up alongside it. Two buildings, standing proud. And then 1893 came calling.
A tornado struck Cisco. Twenty-three people killed. Ninety-three injured.
Both buildings — the sanctuary and the parsonage, the whole of what that congregation had built — destroyed. Just like that. When a tornado takes twenty-three lives in a small town, the silence afterward is something you can't fill with words.
But the members formed a rebuilding committee. And what went up next was larger than what the storm had taken. A bigger sanctuary, a new parsonage — and this time, they put in electric lighting.
That detail right there tells you something about where these people's heads were. Not just rebuilding. Moving forward.
The congregation kept growing along with Cisco. Then came the Eastland County oil boom, and the population swelled to the point where even that rebuilt sanctuary couldn't hold the crowd. In 1919, work began on a new church building.
The Rev. Lewis N. Stuckey conducted the first services when the new edifice was dedicated — late in 1920.
On two separate occasions, Cisco headed a district for the Central Texas Methodist Conference — until consolidation with Brownwood in 1974. From four charter members in a sheep rancher's home at Red Gap, to a district leader in the Central Texas Methodist Conference. The Rev.
Lamb Trimble rode into a wide-open stretch of nothing in 1880, and what he started is still standing. Sometimes four people is enough.
What the marker says
The Rev. Lamb Trimble, a Methodist circuit rider, organized this church at Red Gap (two miles west) in 1880. The four charter members met in the home of M.V. Mitchell, a sheep rancher. The congregation moved to Cisco one year later when the city was founded. Services were held in the schoolhouse until 1883 when the members built a sanctuary on this site. A company purchasing right of way property for the railroad donated the land. An 1889 building program, completed during the pastorate of the Rev. T.C. Ragsdale, doubled the size of the structure and added a parsonage. Both buildings were destroyed in 1893 when a tornado struck Cisco killing 23 people and injuring 93 others. Members formed a rebuilding committee and a larger sanctuary and parsonage were constructed, complete with electric lighting. The population growth of Cisco during the Eastland County oil boom made the sanctuary obsolete, and in 1919 work began on a new church building. The Rev. Lewis N. Stuckey conducted the first services when the edifice was dedicated late in 1920. On two separate occasions Cisco headed a district for the Central Texas Methodist Conference until consolidation with Brownwood in 1974. (1980)