Dennis Methodist Church

Dennis exists because of a bridge. The Handbook of Texas says a bridge across the Brazos River was built in 1892, and Judge N. M. Dennis, a Parker County lawyer and farmer, then developed a community there to serve the farmers and ranchers around it. A Dennis post office opened in 1895. The Handbook describes the place as a church and school community throughout its history. The population passed 100 in the 1950s and 1960s, stood at eighty-six in 1980 and 1990, and was ninety in 2000.

What the plaque says

Dennis Methodist Church N.M. Dennis moved to Parker County from Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1890s and established Dennis Community on the Brazos River (12 miles southwest). This sanctuary, originally located on land he donated to members of the Dennis Methodist Church, was constructed there in 1907. Church activities were important events in the community. Revivals were conducted each summer in a tabernacle adjacent to the chapel. A "dinner on the grounds" and an afternoon of singing and fellowship often followed Sunday services. The congregation welcomed new pastors and their families with a party in their honor. Called, "poundings" because members brought gifts of food, usually in one pound amounts, the celebrations were held at the church parsonage in Weatherford. The population of Dennis started to decline in the 1960s. As people moved from the area, church membership also dropped and the congregation was disbanded in June 1970. The Texas Refinery Corporation of Fort Worth bought the building in 1976 and moved it to this site. It was renamed Founder's Chapel in honor of A.M. Pate, Sr. and Carl Wollner, organizers of the company. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Acton State Historic Site — 10 mi
  The smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
• Granbury Courthouse Square — 14 mi
  A National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
• Chandor Gardens — 17 mi
  A portrait painter's English-and-Chinese garden rooms, blasted and planted from a bare 3.5-acre hillside in Weatherford beginning in 1936, abandoned after 1978 and reopened by the city in 2002.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 18 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Bruce-Davis House — 3.0 mi
• Parsons Station — 6.9 mi
• City of Aledo — 8.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Godley — 9.5 mi