DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Way down in Hidalgo County, there's a little church with a story that reaches back further than most folks around here can remember. It starts in 1874, when a Methodist missionary by the name of Reverend Alexander H.
Sutherland rode into this corner of South Texas and founded a fellowship. Now Sutherland, born in 1848 and gone by 1911, was the kind of early missionary who planted roots in places that didn't yet have much to grab onto. And where did he plant this one?
On Juan Manuel de La Vina's El Capote Ranch. That's where it began. Not a town, not a crossroads with a general store.
A ranch. A fellowship of people gathering in that wide, flat country under whatever shade they could find. Then comes 1883, and the congregation starts meeting near this very site, on the Jackson Ranch.
The owner, Martin Jackson, donated the land. He didn't stop there either. He later built a small chapel for their use.
A man who gives you the ground and then builds you the walls. The years rolled on, and by 1910 most of the church members had picked up and moved to a new city called McAllen. Most, but not all.
A few families stayed. They kept worshiping right here, holding on to something the newcomers left behind. As one of the first Protestant congregations in all of Hidalgo County, this church never quit.
It just kept serving the people around it, quiet and steady, the way the best things in Texas tend to do.
What the marker says
This fellowship was founded in 1874 by the Rev. Alexander H. Sutherland (1848-1911), an early Methodist missionary, on Juan Manuel de La Vina's El Capote Ranch. In 1883 the congregation began meeting near this site on the Jackson Ranch when owner Martin Jackson donated the land. He later built a small chapel for their use. In 1910 most of the church members moved to the new city of McAllen, and only a few families continued to worship here. As one of the first Protestant congregations in Hidalgo County, this church has continued to serve area residents. (1983)