First United Methodist Church of Eastland

Eastland grew slowly before the oil came, from 596 people in 1900 to 855 in 1910, and lived mostly on cotton. During the county's boom from 1917 to 1922 it grew fast, though not as fast as Ranger or Desdemona: the census counted 3,368 in 1920, and some estimates put 10,000 people in town at the 1919 peak. The Handbook of Texas says the prosperity of the 1920s paid for the new courthouse, a new high school and paved streets. Eastland reached its census peak of 4,648 in 1930 and then slowly declined.

What the plaque says

Methodist worship services were held in Eastland County as early as 1865. Soon after the town of Eastland was laid out in 1875, Methodists began meeting in a small log house. The congregation was organized and served for a time by the Rev. Melville B. Johnson, a circuit rider. Soon after this property was purchased in 1882, a building known as the "Little White Church" was constructed. It served the congregation until a new sanctuary was completed during the Eastland County oil boom of the 1920s. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — steps away
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 9.4 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.

More markers nearby

• Early Settlers of Eastland County — steps away
• Camp Salmon, C.S.A. — steps away
• Eastland — steps away
• Mangum Baptist Church — 5.9 mi