Heath Methodist Church

Heath wore three names. Black soil gave it Black Hill, and its 1849 post office was the first in what is now Rockwall County; the office moved to Rockwall in 1854. The village was called Willow Springs until 1886, when it became Heath, for early settler John O. Heath, who arrived in 1846. A fire in 1916 began a long decline, and by 1950 the school had merged with Rockwall's. Heath incorporated in 1959, and Lake Ray Hubbard, filling the East Fork valley in 1969-70, reached just west of town.

What the plaque says

Heath Methodist Church Founded in 1890 at a site just south of town, this church originally was named Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The congregation and the church building moved to Heath between November 1909 and March 1910, and the original building was replaced by 1916. Circuit-riding ministers served the members for many years. The congregation became an integral part of the community. They moved into a new building in 1974, and called their first full-time pastor in 1981. The church continues to serve its community with a variety of ministries. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 6.5 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 15 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Fair Park — 17 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 17 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Sterling Rex Barnes — 0.2 mi
• Central National Road of the Republic of Texas — 5.5 mi
• Chisholm Cemetery — 5.7 mi
• Hillcrest Cemetery — 5.9 mi