Bloys Camp Meeting

Bloys came up with the plan in October 1890 while visiting the family of John Z. Means, and the first two-day meeting opened at Skillman's Grove on October 10, with Bible teaching, sermons and a good deal of visiting. Services were held first under a brush arbor, then for years in a canvas tent, until a permanent tabernacle went up in 1912. The family camps grew into six eating sheds that now feed everyone. The meeting runs five days, from the second Tuesday of August, with four services a day.

What the plaque says

Bloys Camp Meeting Held each year since 1890. Founded by Rev. W. B. Bloys, a Presbyterian. His camp pulpit was an Arbuckle Coffee crate. First campers, 48 people from remote ranches and towns, slept in tents, wagons. Family groups had chuck-box meals, sharing with guests. Some 1,500 attend mid-August meetings today. Still nothing is ever sold in camp. Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Methodists and Presbyterians incorporated the Cowboys' Camp Meeting in 1902. Site, Skillman Grove, has been a camp ground since the 1850s. Elevation is about 6,000 feet. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McDonald Observatory — 11 mi
  The University of Texas observatory on Mount Locke, founded with a Paris, Texas banker's fortune, with star parties three nights a week under some of the darkest skies in the country.
• Davis Mountains State Park & Indian Lodge — 13 mi
  A 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps park above Fort Davis, with the CCC's Skyline Drive, the white adobe Indian Lodge and a trail down to the old fort.
• Fort Davis National Historic Site — 15 mi
  A frontier post of 1854 to 1891 on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, garrisoned after the Civil War by Black regiments, with its buildings restored to their 1880 look.
• Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens — 17 mi
  The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute's grounds south of Fort Davis, with an 18-acre botanical garden, a cactus museum and trails into the desert foothills.

More markers nearby

• McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas — 11 mi
• Jeff Davis County — 15 mi
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis — 15 mi
• Old Fort Davis C. S. A. — 15 mi