Bettie Methodist Church

A 1946 county history dates the Bettie Methodist church to 1891, when Ed Jones dedicated it, a year before the plaque's 1892, and calls it the only church in Bettie. Baptists worshipped at Oak Hill, two and a half miles west. The Handbook of Texas says Bettie had both Baptist and Methodist churches by 1885. Bettie was a lumber town on the Cotton Belt line, with the Rose Bud sawmill nearby and Judge Lowe shipping lumber from his mill five miles away. School was first taught at Rocky Point and moved to Bettie in 1894.

What the plaque says

Bettie Methodist Church This congregation was organized and a sanctuary built at this site in 1892 principally through the efforts of brothers Jeff and Hillard Parish. According to local tradition, the sanctuary (one of the first buildings in Bettie) probably replaced the abandoned or disbanded Parish Chapel Methodist Church which was located about two miles west of here. In addition to religious services, the community's first school and popular singing and music lessons were held in the sanctuary for several decades after its completion. This congregation continues to serve the community. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 19 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Daingerfield State Park — 21 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• Tyler State Park — 29 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Bethlehem School — 2.6 mi
• Site of Old Gilmer — 3.8 mi
• First Baptist Church of Gilmer — 5.5 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Gilmer — 5.6 mi