First United Methodist Church of Junction

The congregation grew while Texas Methodism turned from revivals to teaching. Between 1900 and 1930 enrollment in Methodist Sunday schools in Texas rose from 85,000 to 285,000; summer camps became training centers, Epworth Leagues for young people doubled in membership, and Wesley foundations opened at state universities and colleges. Women were first elected delegates to annual conferences in 1919 and to general conferences in 1922. In 1939 three branches of American Methodism united as the Methodist Church, which counted 475,021 members in Texas, 451,897 of them from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Junction Early Junction residents built brush arbors for religious meetings, and by the 1870s, the city had an active Methodist Society, which hosted traveling ministers, such as the fiery "Fighting Parson" Andrew Jackson Potter. The Junction Methodists became a mission church of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1881. Members built a sanctuary and parsonage in 1889, and the congregation continued to grow. Gov. Coke R. Stevenson, who grew up in the congregation, served on the building committee for the church's 1930 Spanish mission-style sanctuary. Today, the church continues to be a center for worship, education and community activity. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kimble County Historical Museum — 0.8 mi
  A free county museum in Junction, the town at the meeting of the North and South Llano, with the papers, photographs and tools of a ranching county.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 27 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Fort McKavett State Historic Site — 31 mi
  The post Sherman called the prettiest in Texas, home to soldiers of all four Buffalo Soldier regiments and then to a town that lived in its buildings until 1973.

More markers nearby

• College Street Church of Christ — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Junction — steps away
• The Junction Eagle — 0.2 mi
• Early History of Kimble County — 0.2 mi