Vigo Park Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Swisher County, in a little place called Vigo Park, there's a church that outlasted a railroad that never came. Let me back up and set the scene.

In 1906, the Indiana-Texas Land Company planted a town right here at this site, naming it for adjoining counties in western Indiana. The idea was clean and simple: this was going to be a shipping point on a new railroad line. Somebody had big plans.

C. R. Gardner and J.

C. Stitt, both out of Terre Haute, Indiana, came out and built a two-story hotel and store for the firm. And somewhere along the way, they looked around at this wide-open Texas country and decided, you know what, we're staying.

Other settlers soon arrived to join them. Now a town needs more than a hotel and a store. It needs something to hold it together.

Enter Reverend G. R. Fort.

This Methodist minister crossed Tule Canyon and drove twenty-two miles to welcome those settlers. Twenty-two miles out here, that's not a stroll. That's a commitment.

In June of 1907, he held a revival in a tent, and right there under that canvas he organized this church. The charter families read like a roll call of early Vigo Park: Crawley, Derr, Doughty, Gardner, Hay, Hedges, Hunt, Hyatt, Montgomery, Merrill, Pietzscht, Webster, and Welker. Gardner, John Welker, and the minister himself went out riding to the neighboring ranches and came back with donations of money and labor.

Trustees W. B. Doughty, Joe Hastings, and Jim Montgomery bought two lots at this site and hauled building materials all the way from Tulia, while volunteers pitched in alongside Gardner and Stitt to get it built.

That church became the town's second building. For many years, it was the only church in a twenty-mile radius. And then the railroad failed to materialize.

The whole reason this town existed on paper, that promised shipping point on a new line, never showed up. Towns have died for less. But Vigo Park held on, and the marker will tell you plainly why: that church helped sustain it.

It's still important in the life of the community today. A railroad that never came. A church that never left.

Out here in Swisher County, that's the whole story.

What the marker says

The Indiana-Texas Land Company planted a town at this site in 1906, naming it for adjoining counties in western Indiana. It was to be a shipping point on a new railroad line. C. R. Gardner and J. C. Stitt of Terre Haute, Indiana, built a 2-story hotel and store for the firm, and then decided to settle here. Other settlers soon arrived to join them. Methodist minister G. R. Fort crossed Tule Canyon and drove 22 miles to welcome the settlers. In June, 1907, he held a revival in a tent and organized this church. Charter members included the Crawley, Derr, Doughty, Gardner, Hay, Hedges, Hunt, Hyatt, Montgomery, Merrill, Pietzscht, Webster, and Welker families. Gardner, John Welker, and the minister visited the neighboring ranches and secured donations of money and labor to erect a church building. Trustees W. B. Doughty, Joe Hastings, and Jim Montgomery bought two lots at this site and hauled building materials from Tulia, while volunteers helped Gardner and Stitt with the construction. The church was the town's second building. For many years it was the only church in a 20-mile radius. It helped sustain Vigo Park when the railroad failed to materialize, and is still important in the life of the community. (1976)