McKenzie Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way up in Fannin County, there's a church with a story that stretches back further than the building itself, further even than the stone walls you can see from the road today. McKenzie Methodist Church traces its history all the way to the 1840s, when Methodist folks were gathering for services in the Union Church of Honey Grove.

Now that was a shared space, a union church, the kind of arrangement early settlers made when a community was still finding its footing. But Methodists being Methodists, they had their own vision, and in 1881 those Methodist members of the Union Church went ahead and erected their very own building right here. And when it came time to name the place, they honored a man called J.W.P.

McKenzie, a pioneer Methodist preacher in North Texas. That name meant something to those people. It meant something worth putting on a church.

Now here's where the story gets a little layered. That 1881 building didn't just fade away when the congregation outgrew it. When they built their new Gothic structure in 1912, they salvaged the native stone right out of the old walls and worked it into the new ones.

The past, literally built into the present. That 1912 building stands today with its distinctive conical towers, its arched doors, its stained glass windows catching the North Texas light. Stone that was already old when the new walls went up.

Some things in Texas, you don't just leave behind.

What the marker says

This church traces its history to early Methodist services held in the Union Church of Honey Grove in the 1840s. Methodist members of the Union Church erected their first church building here in 1881 and named it for J.W.P. McKenzie, a pioneer Methodist preacher in North Texas. This Gothic structure, built in 1912 incorporating native stone salvaged from the 1881 church building, features distinctive conical towers and arched doors and stained glass windows. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995