Ector Methodist Church

Ector started as Victor's Station. When postal authorities said a town of that name already existed, the Handbook of Texas says residents chose a pioneer's first name instead and became Ector, for Ector Owens. The post office opened in 1886 and the Texas and Pacific tracks reached the place in 1892, making it a shipping point for farmers. The town grew from 218 people in 1904 to 451 in 1926, when it had twenty-five businesses, but by 1988 only three remained, and most residents commuted to jobs in Sherman and Denison.

What the plaque says

Ector Methodist Church The community of Ector was established in 1874 on the route of the Texas & Pacific Railroad. The Ravenna Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was created in 1885, and the Ector congregation, which met in a nearby school, was served by the Rev. R. R. Nelson. A frame church with twin steeples was built in 1888. It was razed in 1960, and an educational building was erected in 1963. The congregation was renamed Ector United Methodist Church in 1968, and a new sanctuary was built in 1976. This church has served its community for over one hundred years. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 3.5 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 25 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Ector Lodge No. 687, A. F. & A. M. — steps away
• Carson Cemetery — 2.1 mi
• Congressman Sam Rayburn — 3.9 mi
• Dr. Tom Douglas Spies — 4.5 mi