Pleasant Mound Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Pleasant Mound Methodist Church. Now, before there was a Pleasant Mound Methodist Church, there was a place called Scyene — a small farming community that once sat right at the intersection of Scyene and St. Augustine Roads in Dallas.

And the folks out there, they didn't start with a church. They started with something bigger. The first building in that community was a two-story meeting house — part church, part general store, part Masonic Lodge, part schoolhouse.

One roof, doing the work of four buildings. That's the kind of practical-minded ambition that tends to take root in Texas soil. Several denominations worshiped under that same roof together, which tells you something about the character of those early Scyene settlers.

And that tradition of worshiping alongside one another? It didn't stop there. When the Methodists built their own log sanctuary in 1876, they kept the door open.

The other congregations kept coming. Then in 1878, the church picked up and moved. Three miles east of Dallas — which today puts it well inside the city limits — to a place called the Pleasant Mound Community.

Newton J. and Catherine Beeman Hustead donated land right at the northwest corner of Scyene Road and Buckner Boulevard, for both a church and a cemetery. That's the kind of gift that anchors a community to a place for generations. A new house of worship was completed in 1881.

Four years later, in 1885, they replaced it with a larger structure. And if you think that's the end of the building story — well, it is not. A growing membership, and then storm damage on top of it, pushed the congregation to build yet another sanctuary in 1895.

Three buildings in fourteen years. These were not people who sat still. After 1900, the other denominations that had been gathering alongside the Methodists all those decades began to go their own ways, forming their own congregations.

But here's the part that'll stay with you — those separate congregations, now scattered to their own buildings and their own traditions, came back together every year for something called a homecoming. From 1910 all the way to 1953. Forty-three years of coming back to the same ground, remembering what it meant to worship side by side.

And then in 1954, land at the current site was purchased, and a new Methodist sanctuary was completed. The congregation that started in a log building in Scyene, that moved and rebuilt and weathered storms, had found its place. Some roots go down so deep, not even a storm can pull them loose.

What the marker says

This congregation traces its history to a Union Church in Scyene, a small farming community once located at the present intersection of Scyene and St. Augustine Roads in Dallas. The first church in the community was a two-story community meeting house that also served as a general store, Masonic Lodge, and school. Several denominations worshiped together, a tradition which continued after the Methodists built a log sanctuary in 1876. In 1878 the church moved to the Pleasant Mound Community (then 3 miles east of Dallas, now within the city). Newton J. and Catherine Beeman Hustead donated land at the northwest corner of Scyene Road and Buckner Boulevard for a church and cemetery. A new house of worship, completed in 1881, was replaced by a larger structure in 1885. A growing membership and storm damage to the building led to the construction of another sanctuary in 1895. After 1900 the other denominations that had been meeting with the Methodists began to form their own congregations. Members of the various congregations met together for annual homecomings from 1910 to 1953. Land at this site was purchased, and a new Methodist sanctuary was completed in 1954.