S. S. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church

Marak is a person before it is a place. The Handbook of Texas says the settlement was named for Frank Marak, a Moravian Czech immigrant who came to Milam County from Fayette County in the early 1880s. Today it is mostly farms scattered around the church and its cemeteries. Like much of rural Texas it lost its young people to town, and the Handbook says that reversed in the 1970s as townspeople built homes in the country. The parish counted 100 families in the early 1980s, and in 2009 the annual homecoming was still held at the church.

What the plaque says

S. S. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church Through the efforts of fellow immigrant Joseph Russek, many Czech families came to this area of Milam County in the 1880s. The first Catholic Mass in the Maraksville settlement was conducted by a visiting priest in the Kaspar Kubecka home in 1883, and later services were held in other homes. In 1889 the Kubecka family donated land for a Catholic school and church, and the community began raising funds to erect a building. A wooden church structure was completed in 1904 and dedicated in 1905. Named for the patron saints of the Moravian immigrants, the congregation was served by the Rev. K. Kacer. Worship services were conducted in Latin, German, and Czech for many years. The congregation has been associated with parishes in Cyclone and Cameron over the years, and additional church facilities have been built and adapted for various purposes, including a school, rectory, and parish hall. Two burial grounds, known as the Old Marak Catholic Cemetery and the New Catholic Cemetery, were established on land donated by church members. The church has been the social center of the community since its founding, and the annual parish picnic has become a popular event in Milam County. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 6.6 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 21 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Calvert — 24 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.

More markers nearby

• Buckholts Brethren Church — 3.6 mi
• Hope Lutheran Church — 3.7 mi
• O.J. Thomas High School — 5.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Cameron — 6.3 mi