First United Methodist Church of Humble

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Humble, Texas. Founded in 1886, and by 1907 it was riding the wild wave of an oil boom.

Now, into that boom town came the Reverend J. T. Browning, riding in from Houston, ready to bring some Methodist worship to the folks who'd settled in around that area.

The question was: where do you hold a church service when the town is moving too fast to sit still? Well, the answer, as it turned out, was a building that had housed a bottle factory. Not a chapel, not a courthouse, not a grand hall.

A bottle factory. You work with what you've got. And apparently, what they had worked just fine.

Word spread, people gathered, and by 1908, the congregation had organized itself proper, with thirty-seven charter members signing on. Thirty-seven people saying yes, this is our community, and we are going to build something lasting here. The very next year, 1909, they did exactly that.

The congregation put up their first real building, a small frame structure. Modest, maybe, but theirs. Now, I wish I could tell you that little frame church is still standing somewhere out on the Texas landscape, weathered but proud.

But fire has a way of ending chapters it was never invited into. That first building was destroyed by fire. The story didn't end there, though.

It never does, not with a congregation of thirty-seven who started in a bottle factory. The church kept growing, the facilities kept reflecting that growth, right alongside the community itself. Humble was Texas Sesquicentennial country, part of the long story stretching from 1836 to 1986, and that first United Methodist congregation, born in a boom and shaped by loss, was woven right into the middle of it.

What the marker says

Founded in 1886, Humble was an oil boom town in 1907 when the Rev. J. T. Browning of Houston began conducting Methodist worship services for residents of the area. The services were first held in a building that had housed a bottle factory. In 1908, this church was organized with 37 charter members. The following year, the congregation constructed their first building, a small frame structure later destroyed by fire. Subsequent church facilities have reflected the continued growth of the congregation and community. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986