The First United Methodist Church of Cotulla

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took its name from a split over slavery. At the 1844 General Conference, delegates voted to ask Bishop James O. Andrew to step aside because his 1844 marriage gave him control of at least seventeen enslaved people, and in 1845 the Southern branch organized separately at Louisville. By 1859 it counted about 511,600 white members and about 197,000 Black members, nearly all of them enslaved. Cotulla's congregation was organized under that name in 1881, and the denomination merged back into the Methodist Church in 1939.

What the plaque says

The First United Methodist Church of Cotulla The first Protestant church in Cotulla, this congregation was organized in 1881 as the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first services were held in the home of John Freeman by the Rev. W. H. Keck. In 1883 the members built a frame chapel at the site of the present parsonage. The only church facility in town, it was shared with Presbyterian and Baptist congregations. The current brick sanctuary was constructed in 1906 during the pastorate of the Rev. Temple G. Woolls. An educational building was added in 1928. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brush Country Museum — steps away
  La Salle County's local museum, with a segregated-schools display that sets the scene for the Welhausen School, where Lyndon Johnson taught Mexican American children in 1928-29.
• Chaparral Wildlife Management Area — 14 mi
  A 15,200-acre South Texas brush country research tract in La Salle and Dimmit counties, open to the public in spring and summer, with a short accessible trail and a long ranching past.

More markers nearby

• La Salle County — steps away
• Cotulla City Park — steps away
• First Deep Artesian Well — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church of Cotulla — steps away