Saint Helena's Episcopal Church

When St. Helena's was organized, Boerne lay in the missionary jurisdiction of Western Texas, set apart by the Episcopal General Convention in 1874. It ran from the counties of the Colorado River west to the Rio Grande and north to a line through Blanco, Llano, San Saba, Tom Green and El Paso counties. Most of the land west of San Antonio was still Indian country, traveled only with armed escort, and goods came inland by wagon from Indianola and Port Lavaca. Bishop R. W. B. Elliott made San Antonio his headquarters and St. Mark's there his cathedral.

What the plaque says

Saint Helena's Episcopal Church The first Episcopal worship service in Kendall County was held in the Old Kuhfuss Hall in Boerne in 1873. St. Helena's congregation was organized by Bishop R. W. B. Elliott in 1881, and a small wooden church structure was erected on this site. By 1929 the need for a new church had arisen. The original wooden building was razed to make room for a new limestone sanctuary. Later additions have included educational and office facilities. St. Helena's Church, a part of Boerne history for over a century, has often served as a center of community activities. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 16 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Frontier Times Museum — 21 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 22 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 24 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• German Music in Boerne — 0.2 mi
• Early Kendall County Jails — 0.2 mi
• Kendall County — 0.2 mi
• Early Boerne Schoolhouses — 0.2 mi