DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker for Madison Square Presbyterian Church in Bexar County — let me tell you how this one goes. Now, December 1, 1881, is a fine day to arrive somewhere with nothing but purpose and a calling. That's the day the Reverend William Buchanan rolled into San Antonio as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church of the United States.
No congregation waiting for him. No building with his name on the door. Just a city, and whatever he could make of it.
He found his first friends in an interesting crowd — members of the military community and other folks of northern background. And where did this little flock first gather to worship? A fire station.
I am not making that up. A fire station. Whatever you picture when you picture a church service, go ahead and add a fire wagon to the scene.
After that came a downtown lodge hall. The Reverend Buchanan was not particular about the address, only about the work. Now here's where the calendar starts moving fast.
On February 18, 1882 — less than three months after he set foot in town — Buchanan acquired a piece of ground in what was then considered an outlying district, a place people called Upper San Antonio. And on the very next day, February 19, he organized the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. One day to get the land.
The next day to plant a church on it. That is a man who did not believe in waiting. The families who stepped up and signed the charter petition read like a proper Texas roll call — Brackenridge, Buchanan, Hill, Irvine, Konkle, McLane, Raymond, and Vanderlip.
Eight families putting their names to something brand new, out on the edge of town, in what was not yet anybody's idea of a neighborhood. Within the following month, the congregation was already meeting on their own site in a temporary chapel. And then — and this is where the story gets some weight to it — they built something meant to last.
A Gothic Revival edifice of rusticated stone, completed in 1883. Stone. Not wood.
Not a borrowed hall. Stone, with all the intention that word carries. But 1886 had something to say about that.
A windstorm — and you have to respect any windstorm that earns its way into a historical marker — severely damaged the building. Severely. Whatever that stone sanctuary looked like standing, the storm changed the picture.
It took until 1895 to rebuild it. Nine years. But they rebuilt it.
The years kept coming. The interior was extensively remodeled. An educational building was added.
In 1906, the members of the demised Grace Cumberland Church joined the congregation — one community finding a home inside another after their own chapter closed. And then there's this: in 1942, Madison Square Church helped bring Trinity University to San Antonio. That is not a small footnote.
That is a university. That is the kind of thing a congregation does when it has been quietly building toward something larger than itself for sixty years. From a fire station in 1881 to a university in 1942 — that's the arc of this particular church, standing in rusticated stone on a patch of ground that used to be the outskirts of everything.
The Reverend Buchanan picked his spot well.
What the marker says
On Dec. 1, 1881, the Rev. William Buchanan came to San Antonio as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church of the United States. With support from the military community and other persons of northern background, he began to hold services, at first in a fire station, and later in a downtown lodge hall. On Feb. 18, 1882, he acquired the present site, then in an outlying district known as "Upper San Antonio." On the next day, Feb. 19, he organized the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. Members of the Brackenridge, Buchanan, Hill, Irvine, Konkle, McLane, Raymond, and Vanderlip families signed the charter petition. In the following month, the congregation began meeting here, on its own site, in a temporary chapel. This Gothic Revival edifice of rusticated stone was completed in 1883. Severely damaged in an 1886 windstorm, it was rebuilt by 1895. In later years, the interior has been extensively remodeled, and an educational building has been added. Members of the demised Grace Cumberland Church joined this congregation in 1906. The Madison Square Church has been active in local mission work, and in 1942 helped bring Trinity University to San Antonio. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1977