Sierra Blanca Methodist Church

Duane's take

The official marker's got the story, and here's how I tell it. Way out in Hudspeth County, where the Chihuahuan Desert stretches wide and the mountains cut the horizon sharp, something took root in 1907 that the land hadn't seen before; at least not in Protestant form. The Sierra Blanca Methodist Church, the very first Protestant church in the whole county, organized that year and didn't wait around feeling sorry for itself about not having a building.

No sir. They held services in a school, because when you've got faith and a community that needs gathering, you make do with what's standing. Now, a school will get you through the lean years, but a congregation with any grit at all is going to want something of its own.

And by 1909, just two years on, they had it. Adobe walls, the way this country builds things meant to last, and if you think that sounds plain, think again, because whoever drew up those plans gave it Gothic windows and a bell tower. Gothic windows.

Out here in the Chihuahuan Desert. That is either audacious or exactly right, and I'm going with exactly right. What makes this story land, though, is one quiet detail the marker offers up almost as an aside: early settlers of all faiths worshipped here.

In a place that remote, in times that hard, the denomination on the door meant less than the community inside. That little adobe church with its tower reaching skyward was, for a while, everybody's church. And that, out on the lonesome west Texas plain, is worth remembering.

What the marker says

Organized 1907. County's first Protestant church. Held service in a school until present structure was built 1909; adobe, with Gothic windows, bell tower. Early settlers of all faiths worshipped here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1968.