DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Way back in 1873, a preacher by the name of Reverend J. Osgood gathered the earliest members of what would become the first United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Texas.
Now, they didn't have four walls and a roof to work with. They had a brush arbor. Just timber, branches, and faith.
That's where it started. Two years later, in 1875, they raised their first real structure right here on this site. And they did not cut corners on the details.
This building came with an amen corner, where the faithful could make their feelings known, and a belfry rising off a neo-classic front. Small congregation, but they had style. Then 1890 rolled around, and the second church went up.
This one had stained glass windows lighting the sanctuary, and a choir bay backing the pulpit. You can almost hear it, can't you. Light coming through colored glass, voices rising up from that choir bay on a Sunday morning.
They kept building. A brick edifice was erected in 1917, and then in 1927, Bishop Sam B. Hay of Houston came to Atlanta to dedicate it.
That's a decade between raising the walls and the formal dedication, which tells you something about patience and purpose. In 1938, an education building was given as a memorial. Somebody wanted to be remembered not in stone, but in learning.
The congregation kept growing, and in 1953 the present church was built, with seating for six hundred people. Then in 1956 they carried out a remodeling. From a brush arbor in 1873 to a six-hundred-seat church.
Reverend Osgood started something under those branches that just would not stop growing.
What the marker says
The Rev. J. Osgood organized the earliest members of the first United Methodist Church in 1873 under a brush arbor. On this site their first structure was built (1875) with an "amen corner" and a belfry on the neo-classic front. In the second church, erected in 1890, stained glass windows lit the sanctuary and a choir bay backed the pulpit. A brick edifice was erected in 1917 and dedicated in 1927 by Bishop Sam B. Hay of Houston. An education building was given as a memorial in 1938. The present church, seating 600, was built in 1953. Remodeling was carried out in 1956.