First United Methodist Church of Clarendon

Lewis Henry Carhart, born in New York in 1833, had served in the Union Army before the Methodist ministry took him to Arkansas and then Sherman, where he planned his colony with money from his wife Clara's brother, Alfred Sully. He left Clarendon in 1880 for a Dallas pulpit, came back in 1884 to run his Quarter Circle Heart Ranch, and organized the Clarendon Land Investment and Agency Company after a trip to England. The drought and blizzard of 1886-87 brought heavy losses, and he resigned in 1887. He died in the Union Soldier's Home at Sawtelle, California.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Clarendon When the Rev. Lewis H. Carhart, a Methodist minister, founded Clarendon, he envisioned it as a religious and educational center. The town was established in 1878 near the junction of Carroll Creek and the Salt Fork of the Red River, six miles north of its present location. Local cowboys nicknamed the settlement "Saint's Roost" because it had no saloons. The first building erected was a combination church and school. Until the turn-of-the-century, there was a Northern Methodist Church in the community. When the railroad arrived in 1887, Clarendon moved to its present site. The Rev. James T. Hosmer, a circuit rider, conducted Methodist services in private homes. In 1888 the Rev. Isaac L. Mills and 15 charter members organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1890 the fellowship erected a frame church building on the southeast corner of Kearney and 4th Street. Membership increased significantly after the founding in 1898 of Clarendon Methodist College, forerunner of Clarendon Junior College. To accommodate the growing congregation, this large classical revival structure was built in 1910, during the pastorate of the Rev. O. P. Kiker. The original roof was replaced in 1950. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Donley County Courthouse — steps away
  Bulger and Rapp's red brick and white stone courthouse of 1891, the oldest in use in the Panhandle, given back its third floor and towers in a 2003 restoration.
• Saints' Roost Museum — 0.7 mi
  Clarendon's county museum in the hospital Cornelia Adair built for JA cowboys in 1910, named for the nickname cowhands gave a Methodist town with no saloons.
• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The two-story house the Goodnights moved into on December 27, 1887, after leaving the JA, with a porch that looks over bison descended from the calves Mary Ann saved.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 26 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• Stockton P. Donley — steps away
• Funeral Business in Clarendon — steps away
• The Clarendon News — 0.3 mi
• St. Stephen's Baptist Church — 0.5 mi