DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along to you just the same. Now, the Rio Grande Valley back in the early nineteen hundreds was the kind of place where a church had to be built before the dust even settled, and somebody had to be the one to go do it. That somebody was the Reverend E.
J. Moebus, sent down by officials of the Texas district of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, with a mission: establish Lutheran congregations in the Valley. No small errand.
On October 30, 1910, the Evangelical Lutheran Emanuel Church was organized right there in Mercedes. Less than a year later, the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company gave the congregation property along the railroad tracks, and on May 28, 1911, that first building was dedicated. You can almost hear the hymns cutting through the Valley heat.
Now, a congregation that's putting down roots doesn't stay put forever. The church later sold that original property and purchased land over on Washington and West Third streets. And here's the part worth savoring: they didn't just leave the old building behind.
That original structure was moved to the new location in 1920. Moved. The whole thing.
But by 1929, a new structure was built and dedicated on that same site, and the congregation kept on growing into it. Then came 1945, and with it a new name: Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church. Same faithful people, same Valley soil, just a name that finally fit what they'd become.
What the marker says
The Rev. E. J. Moebus was sent by officials of the Texas district of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod to establish Lutheran congregations in the Rio Grande Valley. Evangelical Lutheran Emanuel Church organized at Mercedes on October 30, 1910. The American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Co. gave property located along the railroad tracks to the group, and the church's first building was dedicated on May 28, 1911. The congregation later sold the property and purchased land on Washington and West Third streets. Although the original church building was moved to the new location in 1920, another structure was built and dedicated on the site in 1929. In 1945, the church was renamed Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church. (2009)