Blooming Grove United Methodist Church

The first church was painted white, and the name stuck. A Navarro County history says Richard Gowan and his neighbors built the frame White Church on Rush Creek in 1869 as church and school, with a brush arbor beside it for revivals. When the post office came in 1871, residents met at the cemetery's oak grove and, by Gowan family records, Gowan proposed the name Blooming Grove. After Gradyville moved to the railroad the congregation sold the building, and in 1887 a buyer moved it into town to serve as a restaurant.

What the plaque says

Blooming Grove United Methodist Church In 1869, Richard and Susan Gowan gave land on Rush Creek (1 mile southeast) for a Methodist Church and cemetery. Gowan, his neighbors, and others built a white frame chapel for church and school. That building was moved to Blooming Grove in 1887. Second sanctuary was built in 1893 on the present site. The Methodist denomination operated (1899-1913) Central Texas College in Blooming Grove, increasing work of this church. Dr. Clovis Chappell (1882-1972) and Dr. E. B. Hawk (1881-1963), pastors who later won national renown, led in building (1913) the present edifice. The congregation has given 22 men to the ministry. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 15 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 22 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Hill County Courthouse — 25 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 25 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.

More markers nearby

• City of Blooming Grove — steps away
• Grange Hall Cemetery — 4.1 mi
• Barry Baptist Church — 4.6 mi
• Barry — 4.6 mi