St. John's Episcopal Church

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of St. John's Episcopal Church in Corsicana, Navarro County. Now, some things take root slow and steady, and some things take root fast.

The Episcopal faith in the Corsicana area started in the 1850s, quiet missionary work, patient as a rancher waiting on rain. That work kept on until 1871, when this church was finally established. Started as a mission, and the man who organized it was the Reverend Virginius Gee.

That name alone sounds like somebody who meant business. Three years on, in 1874, the congregation put up their first church building, right here on this very site. The land came from E.

J. and W. S. Simkins, donated outright.

Two years after that building went up, the parish was formally organized. They were building something that intended to last. And it did.

Come the 1940s, St. John's was home to an Episcopal school, and not just any Episcopal school. The first one in the entire Dallas Diocese.

That's a distinction that doesn't come along twice. The parish never turned inward either. They reached out, sponsoring St.

Alban's Mission in Hubbard, twenty-seven miles to the southwest. One congregation helping another find its footing, the same way this one found its own all those decades before. Some roots, once they take hold in Texas soil, just don't let go.

What the marker says

This church was established in 1871 following Episcopal missionary efforts which began in the Corsicana area in the 1850s. Started as a mission, St. John's was organized under the leadership of the Rev. Virginius Gee. In 1874 the first church building was constructed at this site on property donated by E. J. and W. S. Simkins. The parish was formally organized two years later. An Episcopal school, the first in the Dallas Diocese, operated here during the 1940s. Actively involved in the area, the parish also sponsors St. Alban's Mission in Hubbard (27 mi. SW).