First United Methodist Church of Eastland

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Methodist worship in Eastland County goes back to 1865. That's before the town of Eastland even existed, before there were streets or storefronts or a post office.

Just people gathering to worship in whatever space they could find. Then 1875 rolls around, the town of Eastland gets laid out, and those Methodists didn't waste any time. They started meeting in a small log house.

Nothing fancy, nothing permanent, just a roof and four walls and a willingness to show up. The congregation got itself organized, and for a time it was served by a man named the Reverend Melville B. Johnson.

Now Reverend Johnson was a circuit rider, which tells you something right there about the kind of dedication this congregation was built on. A circuit rider didn't have one tidy little church to tend. He covered the territory, showing up where he was needed, then moving on.

That's the kind of preaching that plants roots. And roots were exactly what took hold in Eastland. In 1882, the congregation purchased this property.

Not long after that, they put up a building that folks came to call the Little White Church. Simple name, but it carried some weight. That little building served its congregation faithfully, year after year, until Eastland County struck oil.

The boom of the nineteen twenties changed a lot of things around here, and for the First United Methodist Church, it meant a new sanctuary, built and completed right in the middle of all that noise and money and possibility. From a log house to the Little White Church to a sanctuary born in an oil boom. That's not a short road, but it's a steady one.

What the marker says

Methodist worship services were held in Eastland County as early as 1865. Soon after the town of Eastland was laid out in 1875, Methodists began meeting in a small log house. The congregation was organized and served for a time by the Rev. Melville B. Johnson, a circuit rider. Soon after this property was purchased in 1882, a building known as the "Little White Church" was constructed. It served the congregation until a new sanctuary was completed during the Eastland County oil boom of the 1920s. (1985)