Burning Bush Colony, The

The colony was the Texas outpost of the Metropolitan Church Association, headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Two wealthy members, Duke Farson and Edwin Harvey, subsidized the group, and in 1913 some 375 members arrived by chartered train. They gave up their possessions and shared a storehouse and dining hall, and liquor and tobacco were banned. Most came from northern states and farmed poorly, so nuts and fruit from trees planted earlier earned most of the income. In February 1919 the merchant J. L. Vanderver sued for $12,000, and in April the sheriff sold the land at auction in Tyler.

What the plaque says

Burning Bush Colony, The From 1913 until 1919 a religious community operated in this vicinity on the former Joseph Pickens Douglas Plantation. The colony was established by the Metropolitan Church Association, commonly called the Burning Bush Society, an evangelical organization founded in Chicago about 1900. This 400-member Burning Bush colony was set up to be a self-sustaining agricultural community. It operated its own school, sawmill, power plant, water system and sewage disposal facility. Unable to pay its debts, the colony disbanded after the close of World War I. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 15 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 16 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 19 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 23 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.

More markers nearby

• At this site was the camp of the Army of the Republic of Texas — 6.0 mi
• Love's Lookout — 7.0 mi
• Cuney — 9.2 mi
• Old Neches Saline Road — 9.5 mi