DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, most church stories begin with a congregation. This one begins with a railroad.
In 1871, the railroad arrived, and a town called Kilgore got its footing in East Texas. By 1872, Kilgore was founded — and the folks already living a few miles to the northeast, over in a community called New Danville, started lookin' at their new neighbor and thinkin' about a change of address. By 1873, enough of them had made the move that the Kilgore Methodist Society was organized.
A town on the rise, a congregation takin' shape — things were movin'. That same year, 1873, they erected a school building up at Martin and North streets — just a block north of where you're standin' now — for a man by the name of the Reverend Isaac Alexander. Born in 1832, he'd live all the way to 1919, and he was not a man who let grass grow.
He brought his New Danville Masonic Female Academy right along with him when the town shifted, renamed it the Alexander Institute, and set up shop in that new building. On Sundays, that school building pulled double duty — Reverend Alexander conducted services there, and kept on doin' it until 1883. In 1883, something bigger took shape.
The Methodist congregations of Kilgore, Crossroads, Danville, and Pirtle joined together to form the Kilgore Methodist Circuit. The Reverend F. J.
Browning stepped in as its first pastor. Four communities, one circuit, one man at the reins. Now, the Alexander Institute didn't stay in Kilgore forever.
By 1894, the Institute — by then renamed Lon Morris College — picked up and moved to Jacksonville. But the Kilgore Methodists? They kept meetin' in the Institute chapel, holdin' on to that connection a little while longer.
In 1904, the chapel itself was moved — one block southwest, across Martin Street from this very site. And for a while, that was home. Then in 1915, they replaced it with a frame sanctuary.
A proper house of worship, built to last. Except it didn't. In 1931, right in the thick of the Kilgore oil boom, that frame sanctuary was burned by arson.
Gone. You can let that sit a moment — a congregation watches their church burn, and the town around them is roarin' with oil money and chaos and all the disorder a boom brings. It is not a small thing.
But here is what happened next, and this is where the story turns. In 1932 — just one year later — they built this fieldstone sanctuary and the annex you can see today. The 109-member Kilgore congregation became St.
Luke's Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the Reverend Bob L. Pool serving as the first full-time pastor. The Tudor Gothic buildings were designed by architects Smith and Praeger, out of Paris, Texas.
From a railroad town in 1871 to a schoolhouse pulpit, through four merged congregations, a college that moved on, a chapel that got relocated, a sanctuary lost to fire — and then this. Fieldstone. Built to outlast the boom, the arson, and every hard thing before it.
And by the looks of it, so far so good.
What the marker says
The Kilgore Methodist Society was organized in 1873 after many residents of New Danville (4 mi. NE) moved to Kilgore, founded in 1872 after the railroad arrived in 1871. They erected a school building in 1873 at Martin and North streets (1 blk. N) for the Rev. Isaac Alexander (1832-1919), who transferred his New Danville Masonic Female Academy to Kilgore, renaming it Alexander Institute. He also conducted Sunday services there until 1883. In that year the neighboring Methodist congregations of Kilgore, Crossroads, Danville, and Pirtle formed the Kilgore Methodist Circuit, with the Rev. F. J. Browning as first pastor. In 1894 the Institute (later renamed Lon Morris College) moved to Jacksonville. Kilgore Methodists continued to meet in the Institute chapel. In 1904 the chapel was moved one block southwest (across Martin Street from this site). It was replaced there in 1915 with a frame sanctuary which was burned by arson in 1931 during the Kilgore oil boom. This fieldstone sanctuary and the annex were built in 1932, and the 109-member Kilgore congregation became St. Luke's Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the Rev. Bob L. Pool as the first full-time pastor. The Tudor Gothic buildings were designed by Paris, Texas architects Smith & Praeger. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1985