Saint Philip's Episcopal Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Saint Philip's Episcopal Church, Bee County. Now, some buildings are just buildings.

Four walls, a roof, a place to be out of the rain. But some buildings carry years inside them like rings in a heartwood oak, and this one, friends, is the second kind. It starts with land.

In 1890, a piece of ground was purchased from the heirs of G.W. McClanahan, right here on this very site. Three years later, in 1893, the first unit went up.

A transept. Not the whole church, mind you, just a start. But that's how things worth keeping usually begin.

Now here's where the story gets a little wider. Back in 1888, a man named H.W. Wilson, English-born, made a gift of a block of land to the missionary jurisdiction of Western Texas.

That gift sat patient, the way good investments do, until 1910, when the proceeds from the sale of that land came back around and funded the addition of the nave. A man gives land an ocean away from where he was born, and years later the church gets its nave. That's a long, quiet kind of generosity.

The early members did their part too. Furnishings, a bell tower, and a memorial bell, inscribed, dated 1896. You don't inscribe a bell unless you mean for something to be remembered.

Then comes 1954, and Saint Philip's adds another line to its record: the first Protestant parochial school organized in Bee County, right here. And when 1964 brought a renovation, whoever held the plans had enough sense and enough respect to keep the Gothic design intact. Same bones.

Same spirit. Some things you don't fix because they were never broken.

What the marker says

First Unit, transept, built 1893 on this site purchased in 1890 from heirs of G.W. McClanahan. In 1910, nave added with funds from sale of block of land given to the missionary jusidiction of Western Texas by English born H.W. Wilson, 1888. Early members donated furnishings, bell tower and 1896 inscribed memorial bell. First Protestant parochial school in county was organized here in 1954. Gothic design retained in 1964 renovation. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967