DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Way down in the lower Rio Grande Valley, the story of Methodist faith runs deep, and the earliest record of it goes all the way back to 1849. Circuit-riding ministers were out there working that stretch of the Rio Grande from Brownsville to Roma, covering ground that most folks today would only attempt with a full tank and a good playlist.
These were the kind of preachers who didn't wait for a church to come to them. They went to the people. Now, for decades that tradition held, ministers moving through the valley, tending to their scattered flocks.
Then, in 1909, the Rev. C.W. Godwyn was assigned to serve the Methodists in McAllen.
And that year, a small frame sanctuary went up. You can picture it, modest, purposeful, the kind of building that means business even when it doesn't look like much. But McAllen had ambitions.
By 1913, that little frame structure was replaced by something larger. The congregation kept growing, kept gathering, kept filling whatever walls they had, until those walls weren't enough either. So in 1928, they built the present facility.
Three buildings in under two decades, each one a testament to a community that simply refused to stay small. And here's what makes the story land: that congregation, rooted in a tradition stretching back to 1849, continues to be an important part of the McAllen community to this day. Some things just hold.
What the marker says
The earliest record of Methodist church activity in the lower Rio Grande Valley dates to 1849. Circuit-riding ministers served an area along the Rio Grande from Brownsville to Roma. In 1909 the Rev. C.W . Godwyn was assigned to serve Methodists in McAllen, and a small frame sanctuary was built that year. It was replaced by a larger structure in 1913. Continued growth in the congregation led to construction of the present facility in 1928. This congregation continues to be an important part of the McAllen community. (1989)