United Methodist Church of Lexington

The German half of this merger began in a borrowed pulpit. About 1878 or 1879 the German Methodist preacher Julius Urbantke visited Lexington and, two weeks later, preached to some fifty listeners in the English Baptist church, offered by two German businessmen who belonged to it. Families from the Grassyville congregation in Bastrop County began arriving in 1879 and 1880, and the German church built its own house, dedicated on July 29, 1883, with men seated on the west side and women and small children on the east. It was locked in the spring of 1939.

What the plaque says

United Methodist Church of Lexington The Lexington Methodist Episcopal Church, South, appears in the records of the East Texas Conference as early as 1850, with the Rev. Jefferson Shook assigned as pastor. Its history, however, can be traced through the histories of four other Lee County churches. The Liberty Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met west of Lexington, and the two congregations shared the same pastor. When the church disbanded in the 1930s, some of the members joined this congregation. Tanglewood Methodist Episcopal Church, South, served the Tanglewood community (5 mi. N) During the 1930s the congregation sold its land and church building and forwarded the proceeds to the Lexington Church, and the few remaining members came into this congregation. The Early Chapel congregation met in the northern part of the county as early as 1850. Members of the dwindling fellowship voted to move their memberships to the Lexington Church in 1927. The German Methodist Church in Lexington was founded in 1882 with the Rev. Jacob Ott as first pastor. In 1939 the two Lexington Methodist congregations merged. With its membership additions over the years, the United Methodist Church of Lexington has grown to provide significant service and leadership to the community. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 20 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 21 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Bastrop State Park — 27 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 30 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• Town of Lexington — steps away
• The First Baptist Church of Lexington — steps away
• Lexington Masonic Lodge No. 138 — steps away
• Lexington Schools — 0.2 mi