This Week in Texas Methodist History   April 2

Presiding Elder Mack Henson Tells How He Travels His District   1891

One of the most common themes of Methodist history is travel.  We have numerous accounts of circuit riders, presiding elders, and bishops who detailed how they traveled to the churches and conferences to which they were appointed and assigned.  One of my favorite eras of such accounts is the 1880s and 1890s in the full bloom of rail transportation.  Those decades saw rail replace horseback as the main transportation for presiding elders and bishops.  Within the lifetime of some people living then, auto and airplane replaced rail.

I am always amazed at how quickly the rail network was built in Texas abd would like to share how the Austin District Presiding Elder of the West Texas Conference of the MEC  travelled his district. 

The P, E. was Mack Henson.  He was obligated to hold quarterly conferences in his district that included most of Travis, Burnet, Lampasas, Bell, Milam, and Robertson Counties.   There were dozens of small churches in his district serving the needs of the African American Methodists in those counties.

Starting in Autin he would travel the Northwestern Narrow Guage to Burnet through Cedar Park, Leander, Liberty Hill, Bertram, and then on to Marble Falls.  The 30 inch rail had been constructed in 1881 using lighter rail and local cedar ties rather than the conventional standard guage.  It became famous and infamous for hauling the 30,000 pound granite blocks from Granite Mountain to Austin to build the Capitol.  I say infamous because the rail was not strong enough for the load, and there were frequent derailments.  The blocks just lay where they fell.   The R.O.W is now part of the communter line.

The ride from Austin to Burnet took 5 hours from 6:30 a.m to 11:30. a.m.  From Burnet he could take the mail train to Lampasas where he could catch the Gulf Coast and Santa Fe to Milano Junction (today Milano).  The line intersected to International and Great Northern which took him  to Hearne where he could catch the Houston and Texas Central to Calvert.  

To reach the other part of his district he would go to Georgetown via Round Rock and then on to Belton.

Some private conveyance was required to serve Davilla and Milam Grove,  but this route also put him on the Missouri Kansas Texas (Katy).   

What a network of railroads---the MKT, GC SF, Houston and Texas Central, Northwestern Narrow Guage--all to serve the district.