Murray Methodist Church

Thomas Price was not alone for long. J. J. Murray soon followed him, and the two pioneers hunted buffalo together; in 1875 they made the first wagon passage through the Double Fork Mountains. Other early settlers included Russell Tyre, R. K. Mayes and the Carmack and Walsh families. The Handbook of Texas counts a community of twenty-seven Methodists worshiping together by 1886. The town took Murray's name when its post office opened in 1880. By 1980 the post office had closed and twenty-nine people lived here, still the count in 1990, and in 2000 the population was forty-five.

What the plaque says

When early pioneer Thomas Price purchased land in the old Fish Creek community in 1874, he found an abandoned log cabin which, along with his neighbors, he repaired and designated for use as a church. Early settlers, regardless of denomination preferences, worshiped together in the cabin. The Fish Creek Methodist Society was organized in 1886, and a circuit riding minister from the Throckmorton District served the little church. When the membership outgrew the cabin, services were held in a nearby school from 1893 until it burned in 1897. A new school was built, and the church met there until 1907. The Fish Creek community became known as Murray when a new post office was established with that name. In 1907, the W. L. Chandler family donated land to the church, two miles west of the original log cabin site. The church, formerly known as the Methodist Episcopal Church South of Fish Creek, was called Chandler Chapel for a short time, then renamed Murray Methodist Church. A church building was erected, featuring many interior fixtures donated by members of the congregation. The church continues to be a vital part of the community. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap — 11 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 18 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Old Jail Art Center — 33 mi
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.

More markers nearby

• Proffitt Cemetery — 8.9 mi
• Indian Raid on Elm Creek, CSA — 9.0 mi
• Site of Donnell Mill — 10 mi
• Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A. — 11 mi