Fentress United Methodist Church

The town around the church began as Riverside, near a Cumberland Presbyterian church of 1869. Cullen R. and Joseph D. Smith's horse-powered gin of about 1870 moved to the riverfront in 1879 and ran on water power until 1968. In 1892 the town took the name of Dr. James Fentress, its first doctor, who had fought at Plum Creek. Fentress had waterworks by 1898, a lighting system by 1902 and its own paper, the Fentress Indicator. A 1915 river resort offered bathhouses and a water slide, and its later skating rink, with dancing on alternate nights, stirred controversy.

What the plaque says

Fentress United Methodist Church On October 15, 1905, under the leadership of the Rev. V.G. Thomas, 18 men and women organized the Fentress Methodist Church under the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Members initially held services in the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church building until completing their first sanctuary in 1909 near the Fentress post office. In 1924, the congregation moved to this location. Ten years later, members added Sunday School rooms, and over the past several decades, other additions and changes have been made. For 100 years the church has offered worship, music and educational programs in the church traditions begun by the founding members. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 11 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 13 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Gruene Historic District — 20 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 21 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.

More markers nearby

• Burial site of Rev. John McCullough — 1.7 mi
• Rafael Rios No. 1 — 3.9 mi
• Camp Clark, C.S.A. — 4.1 mi
• Martindale School and Gymnasium — 7.3 mi