Manchaca United Methodist Church

Manchaca took its name from nearby Manchaca Springs, where José Antonio Menchaca once camped. A post office called Manchac House opened two miles south in 1851 with William Pelham as postmaster and closed the next year, and a second, Manchac, lasted from 1874 to 1875. The International-Great Northern Railroad arrived in 1881 with a third office, spelled Manchaca and pronounced "Manshack." By 1884 the town had seventy-five residents and shipped grain, cotton, posts and lumber. Annexed to the Austin school district in 1967, it grew from thirty-six residents in the 1970s to 4,700 by 1990.

What the plaque says

Manchaca United Methodist Church Methodists in the Manchaca community began meetings as early as 1871 when circuit riders held worship services in the old rock church owned by the Cumberland Presbyterian congregation. Although this fellowship was not organized formally until 1874, the Rev. Sam A. Whipple was recorded as the pastor of an 80-member congregation in 1873. Church members later worshiped at this site in a wood frame building until current sanctuary was built in 1956-57. For more than 100 years, Manchaca United Methodist Church has provided significant service and leadership to this community. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McKinney Falls State Park — 7.2 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Barton Springs Pool — 9.3 mi
  A three-acre pool in the bed of Barton Creek, fed by the fourth-largest spring in Texas at 68 to 70 degrees, and shared with an endangered salamander found almost nowhere else.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 11 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Antioch Colony — 3.9 mi
• Buda — 4.0 mi
• Dr. Jacob Tally Wilhite — 5.3 mi
• Barton Cemetery — 6.0 mi