Hope Lutheran Church

The congregation organized in February 1918, ten months into America's war with Germany, under a German name. In early 1918 the Texas legislature passed loyalty laws barring German speech and German symbols in public, and federal rules made foreign-language newspapers file translations with the post office. In neighboring Wharton County, home guard members whipped, tarred and feathered a German who had not bought Liberty Bonds. The members still worshiped in both languages. The Lutheran archive at Seguin lists Hope today in the ELCA's Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, and records a 1962 two-point parish with St. John at Wallis.

What the plaque says

Hope Lutheran Church In the 1910s, the Rev. C. Merkel, pastor of an Evangelical Lutheran church in Needville, came to Beasley and invited local Lutherans to services held in the Beasley School building. Many attended, and they later petitioned the Rev. Apfelbach to minister the new congregation. Meeting at the Modena Schoolhouse, charter members organized in February 1918, calling the church Die Ev. Lutherische Hoffnungs Gemeinde. The church initially met twice monthly, with services in German and English. In 1924, members dedicated their first sanctuary. The congregation grew, later adding a parish house and hall. Through its programs, worship and outreach, the church continues to serve its community. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 21 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 24 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  Ten thousand acres of native coastal prairie northeast of Eagle Lake, kept for a critically endangered grouse, many of whose birds are hatched in captivity and released here.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 29 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Beasley — steps away
• Site of the Home of Elizabeth Powell — 4.0 mi
• Kendleton — 6.0 mi
• Terry v. Adams — 6.2 mi