First United Methodist Church of Lampasas

William Fletcher Cummins, the first pastor known here, led two careers. Born in Springfield, Missouri, in 1840, he joined a geological expedition to Texas in 1859 over his minister father's objections and was licensed to preach in 1860. He later wrote that he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 and 1867, playing on the superstitions of freed people. As assistant state geologist for North Texas in 1888 he discovered and named the Strawn, Canyon and Cisco formations, and he collected fossils for the paleontologist Edward D. Cope. He died in El Paso in 1931.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Lampasas Methodists in Lampasas were holding church services as early as 1866. The Rev. William F. Cummins is the first known pastor to have served the Methodist circuit in this area. Although the exact details of the organization of the First United Methodist Church of Lampasas are unclear, it is known that a sanctuary was built on Fourth Street in 1880, during the pastorate of The Rev. E. F. Kahle. Four years later, the congregation sponsored the opening of Centenary College. The Christian Boarding and Preparatory School was located in Lampasas and was in operation for about ten years. In 1900, under the leadership of The Rev. J. S. Braswell, the fellowship moved to a new church home on Key Avenue. The congregation relocated to Highway 190 East and Alexander Drive (1 mi. N) in 1966. Mergers with the Black Methodist congregation known as Alice Chapel and a rural Methodist church at Ogles have strengthened the membership. With ties to the Reconstruction Era in Texas history, the First United Methodist Church of Lampasas has played a long and distinguished role in the leadership of this community. Descendants of some of the earliest known members still worship with the congregation. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.9 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 19 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 26 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Cook Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Lampasas County — 0.7 mi
• The 1957 Flood — 0.7 mi
• First State Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas — 0.7 mi