This Week in Texas Methodist History  July 5

Coleman Methodists Dedicate New Church Building, July 6, 1891

Coleman Texas traces its origins to 1876 with the donation of 160 acres on Hord’s Creek to be the county seat for the newly organized county of the same name.  Although the railroad bypassed the town by five miles, a spur to the town was built by 1886.  The first courthouse was built from locally cut elm trees.  That courthouse included dormitory space for bachelors.  The first religious services were also held in the courthouse. 

The town and county grew rapidly as railroad lands were subdivided into ranches.  Coleman became a major supply center for the region.  True to stereotypes of western towns a shootout in a main street led to the first cemetery.

By 1900 the town had schools, a newspaper, and of course, a Methodist Church.  And what a Methodist Church it was, a new church that had been dedicated on July 6, 1891.

The dedication came at the end of the Brownwood District Conference.   The dedicatory sermon was preached by Rev. C. V. Oswalt (1856-1933) the station preacher at Comanche.  Oswalt had been the Coleman preacher when the church project began. 

The church had a seating capacity of 600, and had stained glass windows and a 70 foot spire.  News reports reveal that the side lecture rooms were full, and participants stood in the aisles---remember it was July in Texas—think of the heat!  The building had cost $5000 and consisted of an auditorium, lecture hall, and pastor’s study. 

Oswalt chose Genesis 26:29 as his text.  That text reveals how a famine was over the land, and Isaac went to Abimelek of the Philistines for help.  God told Isaac in a dream not to go to Egypt, but to stay where they were.   He then preached a long sermon in which he recounted Biblical history and U. S. history with the theme of building religion. 

Oswalt could not know the irony, but Coleman County faced two major famines just one generation later.  The droughts of 1917-18 and again in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s devastated the agricultural economy of the entire region—and resulted in depopulation.  Farmers and ranchers were forced to emigrate.  Eventually the population stabilized and First UMC of Coleman continues to bring ministries to the community.