This Week in Texas Methodist History November 26 Austin Conference of the MEC Meets in Dallas Nov. 25-29, 1886 The Austin Conference of the MEC never was very large, and it lasted only a few years, but during its existence it accomplished a great deal, especially in the area of education. The Austin Confernce of the MEC grew ouit of the Texas Confernce of the MEC which had been organized by Bishop Matthew Simpson in Houston in January 1867. That conference consisted mainly of African American preachers with a few German Methodist preachers who switched from the MECS and a few transfers of English speaking Caucasian preachers who transferred from northern conferences. That racial/ethnic inclusiveness proved a barrier to MEC organizing in Rconstruction Texas, and at the 1872 Genral Confernce of the MEC a decision was made to allow the conferences to split along ethnic/racial lines if supermajorities of all the groups involved voted to do so. Based on this new policy, there were soon four MEC conferences in Texas===The Texas and West Texas Conferences for African Americans, the Southern German Confeernce for German speakers, and the Austin Confernce for Englishsh speaking Caucasians. The Austin Conference met in Tabernacle MEC Church in Dallas the last week of November, 1886. The presiding bishop was John Hurst of Buffalo, New York. (b. 1834, elected bishop 1880, famous for his role in founding American University in the District of Columbia, died 1903) There were fifteen elders, five deacons, and four probationers of the conference roll, but immigration to Texas was bringing in new residents more friendly to the MEC and the southerners who favored the MECS. Thanks to the expaning rail network of the Inteernational and Great Northern, the Union Pacific, the Texas and Pacific, and the Fort Worth and Denver City, the Missouri Kansas and Texas, the St. Louis and Southwestern Railroad among others, land developers were carving out farms and ranches on both the Gulf Coast and Western Plains of Texas. Notable among the immigrants to Texas were Midwesterners who were MEC members and had little interest in joining the MECS. Especially prominent among the immigrants were Scandanavians---a few Norwegians to Bosque and Henderson Counties, but mainly Swedes attracted to Travis and Williamson Counties. By 1886 there were enough of these Scandanavian Methodists to warrant a Scandanavian District that would become its own annual conference in 1912. Although it was quite small, the conference of 1886 had two colleges to report on. The jewel in the crown was Texas Wesleyan College built on College Hill in Fort Worth. They had just moved into a new building the previous January 1, and reported 140 students enrolled and expected to have two graduates the following May. Dear Reader---this is very confusing, because this is not the Texas Wesleyan University that exists in Fort Worth today. It is also not the Texas Wesleyan College that the Swedish Conference later founded in Austin, but it is the forerunner of Oklahoma City University. The college in the planning stage was Odessa College which did open in 1891 enrolled 14 students and closed after one one session when the building burned. It had been financed by a $12,000 grant from the Odessa Townsite Company which the Austin Confernce matched. What happened to the Austin Conference? It changed its name to the Gulf Confereence when churches in Soutnh Louisiana were added and the West Texas churches were made part of the Oklahoma Conference. As noted above, the Swedish churches became their own conference in 1912. Both the German and Swedish Conferences lasted until 1927 when then were folded into the English speaking work. By comparison, the much smaller German Mission Conference of the MECS held its last session in November 1918.