Frankford Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out here in Collin County, there's a story that starts with a building doing double duty: the kind of arrangement that made early Texas communities work. The White Rock Masonic Lodge Hall wasn't just a lodge hall.

It pulled weekend shifts as a schoolhouse and a church building both, serving the early Frankford community back when folks made do with what they had and didn't complain much about the arrangement. Now, among the worshipers gathering in that space was a group of Methodists, and by 1885 they'd been organized as part of a circuit; a formal thing, a commitment. But sharing a Masonic lodge hall only goes so far, and these Methodists had their eyes on something of their own.

That's where Captain William McKamy enters the picture. Born in 1823, gone by 1902; a man who clearly knew how to get something built before his time ran out. In the 1890s, Captain McKamy and several neighbors put in the effort and up went a frame church building, right there in Frankford.

The Methodists moved in and they stayed. They occupied that structure all the way until 1924; nearly three decades of Sundays inside those walls. Then the building went quiet for a stretch, the way old buildings sometimes do, holding their breath.

But in the 1960s, Episcopal services began there, and that frame church found a new congregation filing through its doors. Some buildings just refuse to be finished with their purpose. Frankford Church is one of them.

What the marker says

The White Rock Masonic Lodge Hall served as a schoolhouse and church building for the early Frankford community. Among the worshipers were a group of Methodists who were organized as part of a circuit in 1885. In the 1890s, this frame church building was erected through the efforts of Captain William McKamy (1823-1902) and several neighbors. The Methodists occupied the structure until 1924. Episcopal services began here in the 1960s. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978