Carroll Springs Methodist Church

Carroll Springs took its name from a nearby spring, the Handbook of Texas says. According to Texas Escapes, burials began on the site in 1859, with John Buck Hogg's March 1859 grave the earliest marked, and A. M. Carroll set aside nearly five acres in 1884 for a school, church and cemetery. By the mid-1930s the settlement had a church, a school and a number of houses. The school consolidated with Athens in 1947, and by the early 1990s only the church, a cemetery and a few houses remained.

What the plaque says

Carroll Springs Methodist Church This congregation traces its history through several Henderson County Methodist churches. Earliest worship services in Carroll Springs were held in private homes, with the Rev. William D. Sansom occasionally leading them. Worshipers went to county line after a Methodist church was organized there in 1859. The church was moved to New Hope in 1865 with the Rev. Joseph Franklin Lambright as pastor. He continued as the minister when the congregation moved to Coolsprings in 1872. In 1883, the Methodist congregation relocated to Carroll Springs, where it has remained since that time. The forty charter members were served by J. F. Lambright until his resignation in 1891. Other pastors have included his son, the Rev. J. M. M. Lambright, and the Rev. R. E. Gibbs. Carroll Springs Methodist Church traditionally has held a revival under the brush arbor beginning the first Sunday in August. An important part of this rural community, the church continues to reflect the ideals and traditions of its founders. Descendants of many of the charter members still worship here. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 12 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 24 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 25 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 33 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.

More markers nearby

• Old Montalba — 8.3 mi
• Barker Cemetery — 9.3 mi
• First Gravesite of Cynthia Ann Parker — 9.9 mi
• Davis Reynolds — 10 mi