The Methodist Home

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it to you straight — well, mostly straight. In 1890, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, appointed the Reverend Joseph S. Key as Bishop for the Northwest Texas Conference.

Now, Bishop Key had already been working with Methodist orphanages back in Georgia, so when he arrived in Texas, he didn't need long to see that something similar was needed here. He got to work. Alongside the Reverend Doctor Horace Bishop — Pastor of Waco's Fifth Street Methodist Church, which you'd know today as First United Methodist — Bishop Key secured a twenty-seven-acre estate.

It had belonged to Emily W. Martin, and sitting on it was a large Miller Family residence right here at this site. The plan was an orphanage, and they were movin' forward.

The Reverend W. H. Vaughn stepped in as the Methodist Home's first administrator, and in April of 1894, the first orphan was welcomed through the door.

By the end of that same year, twenty-six children were calling this place home. Twenty-six. In less than a year.

The need was real, and it wasn't going anywhere. As the years rolled on, the campus grew — more programs, more residents, more buildings going up. By the nineteen-twenties, the home had added vocational and college training programs.

Then in the later nineteen-thirties, they traded out dormitory housing for cottages, and a chapel was built at the highest point on the campus. Think about that choice for a moment — the highest point. In 1971, an associated boys' ranch opened east of the main campus.

And the work kept expandin' — into community counseling, into foster care. What started with one child in April of 1894 grew into something this county has been building on for over a century. Some institutions outlast the moment that made them necessary.

This one earned it.

What the marker says

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, appointed the Rev. Joseph S. Key as Bishop for the Northwest Texas Conference of the denomination in 1890. Bishop Key, who had previously worked with methodist orphanages in Georgia, saw an immediate need for a similar institution in Texas. With the help of the Rev. Dr. Horace Bishop, Pastor of Waco's Fifth Street Methodist Church (now First United Methodist), Key secured the 27-acre Emily W. Martin estate and large Miller Family residence at this site for an orphanage. The Rev. W.H. Vaughn served as the Methodist Home's first administrator. The first orphan was welcomed in April 1894, and by the end of that year the home was caring for twenty-six children. As the number of programs and residents increased, the campus was enlarged and additional buildings were erected. By the 1920s the home instituted vocational and college training programs. In the later 1930s cottages replaced dormitory housing and a chapel was built at the highest point on the campus. An associated boys' ranch opened east of the main campus in 1971 and in recent years programs have expanded to include community counseling and foster care.