Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of Premont

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Premont, Jim Wells County, and a congregation that's been putting down roots since before the town had much of anything at all. Development of Premont began in 1904.

That's the starting gun. But a post office, which is how you know a place is serious about itself, that didn't open until January 13, 1909. In the meantime, if you wanted a church service, you took what you could get.

And what the Methodists got, for a while, was a surveyors' and land agents' bunkhouse. Visiting ministers coming through would hold services right there among the maps and the mud and whatever else those fellows left behind. You work with what you have.

That's a Texas tradition if there ever was one. Then, about 1910, the Methodists decided it was time to do something permanent. They erected the town's first church.

Thirty feet wide, sixty feet long, stucco chapel. First church in Premont. And here's the part that tells you something about the character of the place: they didn't keep it to themselves.

They shared it with other faiths. And sometimes the doors opened wider than that, for secular gatherings too. That little stucco chapel held more than hymns.

In 1943 and 1944, the public school system used the building. Think about that. A church standing in for a schoolhouse, still doing the work of the community, decades after it first went up.

But time moves, and congregations grow, and in 1954 they built an educational annex. Two years later, in 1956, the old chapel was razed. Gone.

And right there on the original site, the present sanctuary went up in its place. Same ground. New walls.

The town that started with a bunkhouse for a church ended up with something built to last.

What the marker says

Development of Premont began in 1904; the post office opened on January 13, 1909. Visiting ministers occasionally held church services in a surveyors' and land agents' bunkhouse. About 1910, Methodists erected the town's first church, a 30' x 60' stucco chapel, sharing it with other faiths. Sometimes open also to secular gatherings, that building was used in 1943-44 by the public school system. In 1954 an educational annex was built and in 1956 the old church was razed and present sanctuary erected on the original site. (1975)