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. Back in 1904, a Methodist preacher by the name of Reverend C. W.
Perkins rode into what would become Falfurrias, and he didn't waste any time. With just seven charter members, he organized a congregation right then and there. Seven people.
You could seat them all in a single wagon and still have room for the hymnals. But every great church has to start somewhere, and this one started lean. Early services moved around like a traveling show, held in temporary quarters, including the railroad depot and the 1905 frame schoolhouse, which at the time was shared by all denominations in town.
Methodists, everyone else, all crowded under the same roof, making do. Now, that's not a complaint. That's a community finding a way.
Then in 1906, the Methodists put up a building of their own, and they didn't do it alone. Edward C. Lasater, founder of Falfurrias, donated the land.
That frame church went up, and it must have felt like something solid at last. But South Texas has a way of testing what you build. Hurricanes came through in 1916, and then again in 1919.
Two storms, roughly three years apart, both taking a swing at that little frame structure. It held on. The congregation remodeled in 1935, patched it up, kept going.
But by 1950, the time had finally come to replace the old frame building altogether, and the present edifice went up in its place. Reverend C. W.
Perkins, who organized those original seven souls back in 1904, was born in 1853 and lived all the way to 1942. He outlasted the hurricanes, outlasted the frame church itself. Not a bad legacy for a preacher who showed up with seven members and the sheer intention to build something that would last.
What the marker says
The Rev. C. W. Perkins (1853-1942) organized this congregation in 1904 with 7 charter members. Early services were conducted in temporary quarters including the railroad depot and the 1905 frame schoolhouse, shared by all denominations. In 1906 the Methodists erected their first church building on land donated by Edward C. Lasater (1860-1930), founder of Falfurrias. Damaged by hurricanes in 1916 and 1919 and remodeled in 1935, the frame structure was replaced in 1950 by the present edifice. (1976)