Leakey Methodist Church

The church's name carries a split and a reunion. Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the body its early congregation belonged to, formed after delegates from slaveholding states withdrew from the 1844 General Conference during the debates over slavery, and Texas Methodists voted to join it in 1845. In 1939 three branches accepted a plan of union as the Methodist Church; of its 475,021 Texas members, 451,897 came from the Southern church. The uniting conference of 1968 called for ending the church's segregated central jurisdiction.

What the plaque says

Leakey Methodist Church By establishing a home and sawmill nearby in 1856 John and Nancy Leakey became the first to settle in the Frio River Canyon area. This congregation traces its origin to worship services held in the Leakey home by Methodist circuit riding Minister H. G. Horton. In 1883 the Methodist congregation began meeting in a schoolhouse built in the newly established town of Leakey. By 1885 the schoolhouse was also the site of a church school known as the Floral Sabbath Sunday School supervised by Dr. F. D. Johns. A town lot donated by J. B. and Fannie (Leakey) Johnson in 1890 was used by the Leakey Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to build its first sanctuary in 1890-91. The congregation met in the original sanctuary and later the county courthouse before building a new sanctuary at this site in 1922. The church became the Leakey Methodist Church in 1939. An education building was added in 1955 and a new parsonage in 1965. Annual Easter sunrise services and hosting community Thanksgiving services every three years are traditional activities of the congregation. Leakey Methodist has historically supported many youth and senior programs and missionary efforts. The congregation continues to provide religious guidance for the community. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Real County Historical Museum — steps away
  A small county museum in Leakey, at the head of the Frio Canyon, with a log-cabin parlor, an 1880s horse-drawn hearse, a wool and mohair shearing machine and 1910s jail cells.
• Garner State Park — 9.1 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.
• Lost Maples State Natural Area — 12 mi
  A canyon of the upper Sabinal where a relict stand of bigtooth maples turns color each autumn, a sight that drew crowds up a gravel road long before there was a park.
• Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area — 33 mi
  A 140-foot shaft into a cavern outside Rocksprings, seen only on guided tours from a platform at the rim as some three million bats spiral out on summer evenings.

More markers nearby

• Leakey School — steps away
• John Leakey — steps away
• Real County — 0.2 mi
• Real County — 0.2 mi