Industry Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it along straight. The Industry Methodist Church, Austin County, Texas. Now, some buildings just go up.

Somebody writes a check, somebody hires a crew, and before long there's a church standing where there wasn't one before. This was not that kind of building. Let me back up.

It starts in 1847, when the Reverend Henry Bauer came out to do missionary work among the German settlers in this part of Texas. He organized the congregation, planted the seed, and the community took root. Twenty years pass.

The year is 1867, and the congregation is ready to build. There is just one problem. Money is scarce.

This is an era of financial difficulty, as the marker puts it, and that is doing some real heavy lifting as a phrase. The funds were raised only by very great sacrifices on the part of the people. You sit with those words a moment.

Very great sacrifices. And then, because that still was not enough, the men of the congregation picked up the tools themselves and did the construction work. That building went up board by board, nail by nail, by the hands of the people who were going to worship inside it, under the leadership of their pastor, the Reverend Karl Biel.

Now fast forward a century. The hundredth anniversary of that congregation arrives, and the pastor standing at the front of the church is the Reverend A. M.

Roos. A hundred years after Reverend Bauer organized those first German settlers into a community of faith, the church is still there. Still standing.

Built by sacrifice, built by the hands of its own people, and still standing.

What the marker says

Organized 1847 by the Rev. Henry Bauer, missionary to the German settlers. In 1867, this building was erected under the leadership of the pastor, the Rev. Karl Biel. This was an era of financial difficulty, and the funds were raised only by very great sacrifices on the part of the people. Men of congregation did the construction work. The Rev. A. M. Roos was pastor of the 100th anniversary. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967