Powers Chapel

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's what this place is all about. Before 1850, a Methodist circuit rider by the name of Reverend Joseph P. Sneed came through this part of Falls County and did what circuit riders did best: he gathered people together.

Sneed, born in 1804 and gone from this world by 1881, organized a congregation that would one day be known as Powers Chapel. Now, that name didn't just appear out of nowhere. Two men, Luke Powers and John Cullines, donated the land itself, and by 1855 a log church house was standing on it.

A real, honest log church house. And it didn't just hold Sunday services, either. That building pulled double duty as a community center and a school, which tells you something about how much work one simple structure could do out here on the Texas frontier.

Then comes 1870, and somebody decided it was time to think bigger. The log church gave way to a two-story building, and here's the detail that makes you raise an eyebrow: the Masonic lodge took the upstairs. The congregation downstairs, the lodge above.

That structure kept on being worked on and was completed in 1890. Along the way, other land gifts came in, and that acreage provided for a cemetery and a tabernacle, which took the place of something even older, an early brush arbor. Just an open-air shelter of branches once, and now a proper tabernacle standing in its place.

Revivals and Memorial Day services are still held here. From a circuit rider on horseback before 1850, to a log house, to a two-story building with a lodge upstairs, to a tabernacle where the brush arbor used to be. Powers Chapel kept growing, and it's still at it.

What the marker says

Before 1850 the Rev. Joseph P. Sneed (1804-1881), a Methodist circuit rider, organized the congregation later known as Powers Chapel. Luke Powers and John Cullines donated this land for a log church house built in 1855. It served as a community center and school until a two-story building, with a Masonic lodge upstairs, replaced it in 1870. This structure was completed in 1890. Acreage from other land gifts provided for the cemetery and the tabernacle which took the place of an early brush arbor. Revivals and Memorial Day services are still held here.