The Rock Church - St. Olaf Lutheran Congregation

The congregation that outgrew the rock church moved into Cranfills Gap. The Handbook of Texas says Cranfills Gap honors George Eaton Cranfill, who settled nearby by 1851. In May 1879 Sam Cranfill moved a Hamilton County post office across the county line into the gap, and Riley and Bud Ford opened the first store in 1882. The town moved east of the ridge in 1913, hoping for a railroad that never came. In the Fourth War Loan Drive of World War II it was the first town in the nation to sell more than its quota.

What the plaque says

The Rock Church - St. Olaf Lutheran Congregation Built in 1886 of native stone by architect Andrew Mickelson and his brothers, Christian and Ole Mickelson. It originally had a dirt floor and planks laid on wooden kegs for pews. The bell was acquired in 1897. The church served the Norwegian settlers of this area, who were members of Our Savior's Lutheran Church of Norse (6 miles east). In 1902, the growth of the community necessitated separation from the Norse church, and the St. Olaf congregation was organized. A new edifice was erected in Cranfills Gap (4 miles west) in 1917, and this church has since been used only for special services. Incise on back: In Memory of Otto H. Reesing 1890-1974 (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Meridian State Park — 8.2 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.
• Bosque Museum — 11 mi
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.
• Hamilton County Courthouse — 21 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.

More markers nearby

• Jens Jenson Homestead — 3.0 mi
• Cleng Peerson — 6.6 mi
• Norwegian Settlements in Bosque County — 7.5 mi
• Bosque County — 11 mi