This Week in Texas Methodist History   December 9

Texas and East Texas Conference Reunited December 1902

The MECS General Conference of 1902 erased the division created by the General Conference of 1844 and reunited the East Texas and Texas Conferences. 

Although the big news of the 1844 General Conference was the controversy surrounding slavery, delegates also authorized the division of the Texas Conference into the Western Texas Conference and the Eastern Texas Conference.  The boundary between the two conferences was the Trinity River.    There had been several boundary changes after that.  In 1858 the western portion of the Texas Conference was broken off to from the Rio Grande Mission Conference (a predecessor of today’s Rio Texas Conference.)   After the Civil War the northern portions of both the Texas and East Texas Conferences were split off to form the Trinity (today’s North Texas) and Northwest Texas (today’s Central and Northwest Texas Conferences). 

There were a few other changes.  In 1866 the newly created Trinity Conference was assigned Marion, Cass, Bowie, and adjacent counties, but the East Texas Conference got them back later.  In 1894 delegates to General Conference realized rivers in urban areas do not make good boundaries so there were adjustments to the North Texas and Northwest Texas boundaries in Dallas and Tarrant Counties. 

In 1900 the Northwest Texas Conference was by far the largest Texas annual conference.  It stretched from Williamson to Dallam Counties—roughly Round Rock to Dalhart.  It included Bell, McLennan, Tarrant counties in the east and the rapidly growing railroad cities of Abilene, Lubbock, and Amarillo in the west.  

In the meantime, the West Texas, East Texas, and Texas Conferences were being left behind as a percent of total Texas Methodist population.  The 1902 reunion of the Texas and East Texas Conferences partially remedied that situation and also helped the West Texas (today’s Rio Texas) by breaking the Austin District from the Texas Conference and giving it to the West Texas Conference. 

Crockett was chosen as the site of the 1902 Annual Conference at which the reunion would take place.  Bishop Eugene R. Hendrix presided that year.   The new conference had the following Districts:   Calvert, Brenham, Houston, San Augustine, Beaumont, Pittsburg, Palestine, Tyler, and Huntsville. 

Since the two conferences were being reunited, the Conference Secretary, J. W. Downs, decided to include a pictorial directory in that year’s Journal.  The 1902 Journal therefore exists as a valuable resources for genealogists and historians.