Buckholts Brethren Church

The Brethren came to Texas as independent Czech congregations, the first at Wesley in 1864, and were organized as the Unity of the Brethren in 1903, four years before Buckholts formed its own. The Handbook of Texas notes that perhaps 90 percent of Czech immigrants were Catholic in the old country, which made this church the minority tradition among Texas Czechs. The denomination kept Czech alive in print, with sections of its Brethren Journal in the language. Buckholts itself drew farmers from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, as the Handbook lists them.

What the plaque says

Buckholts Brethren Church As early as 1848, Bohemian and Moravian immigrants of the Unity of the Brethren faith arrived in Texas. The Protestant denomination began with Czech reformer John (Jan) Hus, and when Buckholts residents held their first Brethren services in 1894, they used the Czech language. The Rev. Adolph Chlumsky led the first services for the group, which in 1907 formally organized the Czech Moravian Church. Members built a wooden sanctuary at this site in 1913 and used it until dedicating a new structure in 1951, around which time the church began holding services in English. In 1959, the congregation changed its name to Buckholts Brethren Church. It continues to serve as a community focal point. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 9.0 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 20 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Calvert — 28 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.

More markers nearby

• Hope Lutheran Church — 0.3 mi
• S. S. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church — 3.6 mi
• Bryant Station — 4.2 mi
• Site of New Colony School — 6.3 mi