CHAPTER 11.

Churches

GERMAN EVANGELICAL congregations probably held the earliest organized church services in our community, as they were meeting on a more or less regular schedule in the Mohr settlement northwest of El Paso in the early 1850's. Reverend Hoffman was the pastor, and all of the meetings were held in private homes. In 1864, when the Reverend Shoemaker was pastor, the congregation decided to build a church in El Paso. George L. Gibson gave them a lot on the northwest corner of Second and Pine Streets where the P. J. Roth home stands and they purchased another lot next west of it for $100.

They erected a frame church on the site, and in 1877 purchased a parsonage at the northwest corner of Third and Grant Streets. For a time this congregation also held services at the Walnut Grove Mission southwest of El Paso. The congregation finally diminished in numbers and the church building and parsonage were sold to J. D. Jenkins on April 30, 1902 for $2,500. The old church was used from that date for the newly developing game of basketball, but was torn down in 1910 to make way for W. H. Kingdon's new residence.

THE KAPPA METHODIST EPISCOPAL church at first held its meetings in the Kappa depot, where ten persons organized a "class" in 1855, earliest in any of the new towns. Members of the Evangelical Church also worshipped with these Methodists, and an agreement was finally reached in preparation for building a church which contained the

statement: "The Methodist Episcopal Church is to be held in trust by a board of trustees from the M. E. Church and the Evangelical Church, with a majority of one of the trustees to be from the Methodist Church; the building to be used by itinerant ministers of both conferences on alternate Sundays." The first trustees were William Whitmer, James

Jaynes, Conrad Waugh, Emanuel Paul, E. M. Dixon and William North.

James and John C. Jaynes, Emanuel Paul, Charles Bingner and William North served as the building committee. Thomas Dorsey and his son did the masonry and John Miller of Hudson built the church. Caleb Horn finished the basement and built the fence to enclose the lot. The church was finished in 1874 at a cost of $2,400 including stoves, furniture and fence. It never had a resident minister, being served by pastors located in El Paso, Gridley and Hudson. The Evangelicals withdrew in 1922-23 and the Methodists continued until the

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