Verona Methodist Church

A 1913 newspaper account shows the day Verona's church reopened. On a Saturday and Sunday in August, the Blue Ridge circuit held its third quarterly conference in the new building, and the women served dinner on improvised tables under the pavilion beside it. Sunday was the dedication. Presiding elder Spragins preached on Matthew 16:18 to a large crowd, and the writer called the church modern and well finished. He credited a faithful few who planned while others slept, and dated the cyclone that destroyed its predecessor to just a year before.

What the plaque says

Verona Methodist Church A group of families met in 1887 to establish the Verona Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first pastor was L.L. Naugh. W.E. and Elizabeth St. Clair donated land in 1888 and a church building was erected. In 1911 a tornado destroyed the structure, and the congregation built a new sanctuary which continued as a community gathering place. Dedicated members rescued the church from closing in 1959, replaced the sanctuary and have continued to improve the facility. Loyal members support the church which continues to serve the area as it has for 110 years. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 12 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 22 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 22 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 25 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Altoga Cemetery — 3.0 mi
• Pleasant Grove Cemetery — 3.2 mi
• Blue Ridge — 3.7 mi
• Blue Ridge Methodist Church — 3.8 mi