Pirtle United Methodist Church History

Pirtle, Rusk Co TX

Submitted by  Ralph Ward Jr.

Some fourteen years before shots were fired on Fort Sumter triggering the start of The War Between the States and nearly three decades prior to Texas’ first venture into higher public education on the Central Texas plains south of Bryan, residents in west central Rusk County began worshipping in a country church in an area known then as Belleview (later spelled Bellview).

That original church was called the Belleview Methodist Episcopal Church when founded in 1847, which was part of a dynamic, thriving rural community of 631 persons. It included a hotel, a saloon, a cotton gin, four stores, a blacksmith, an academy, and four churches.

Belleview emerged as a stagecoach stop in the 1820s and may have been one of the earliest settlements in what eventually became Rusk County. George Washington Pirtle, a land speculator, arrived in the 1840s, obtained control of surrounding lands, and began selling lots. Pirtle was the first postmaster of a post office that opened in 1849. He also opened a popular, renowned racetrack where he raced his famous horse, Old Shiloh. Pirtle died a year later from consumption during the height of Belleview’s growth boom.

James Madison Barton, a Belleview store operator and Rusk County sheriff, recruited a company of Confederate cavalrymen beneath the historic bois d’arc tree that still proudly shades church property. Col. Barton was in possession of a flag presented to the Rusk County Avengers by Miss Lucy Kilgore. All Confederate battle flags were surrendered at Appomattox, except this notable flag, which Barton folded around his waist and wore home beneath his shirt. (Barton’s heirs presented the restored flag in 1993 to the Depot Museum in Henderson.)

Belleview continued to have a post office under the Confederacy, but it was closed in 1869 under Reconstruction (along about the time the name was shortened to Bellview). The war ruined the fortunes of many large planters, and Bellview gradually declined as a result. The International and Great Northern Railroad, in 1873, bypassed Bellview on its route from the new town of Longview to Palestine. Along the way new towns were laid out where property owners provided the railroad right-of-ways. Neighboring entrepreneurs Buck Kilgore and Frank Overton later had towns named after them while Bellview, Rocky Mount, and Jamestown began to decline.

Just as the community had been experiencing a renaissance a decade later which saw the post office reopen, a town called Bellevue had been established northwest of Bowie in Clay County. The post office subsequently requested that the name of the East Texas community be changed to avoid confusion. Thus, the community was renamed Pirtle after its founder, George Washington Pirtle. Unfortunately, the name disappeared from the maps in 1907 when the post office was closed, and mail was routed first through Kilgore and then later through Overton.

Settlers found themselves situated in a rapidly growing county which would grow to over 8,000 by 1850. Ten years later, Rusk County had a population of nearly 16,000, the largest population of any county in Texas and, until 1873, saw its boundaries extended north to the Sabine River. In 1873 the southern part of Gregg County was formed from the northern end of Rusk County.

But through all the economic booms and busts, financial strife, wars, and political turbulence, the Pirtle Methodist Church continued to be the place rural area residents could turn for prayer, strength, and spiritual enlightenment.

Although records do not indicate the first Pirtle minister, Isaac Alexander, a well-known Methodist preacher and teacher hired in 1860, spent the next thirty years preaching and teaching in the Pirtle-Kilgore-Danville area. It is believed that no individual had a stronger and more profound influence on Methodism in Northeast Texas than did Rev. Alexander. Danville Academy, established in 1854, was renamed Alexander Institute in 1873 in honor of Alexander and his work. In the fall of 1894, it was relocated to Jacksonville, where it became the forerunner of Lon Morris College and still affiliated with the Methodist Church.

In December 1883 Pirtle joined with the Kilgore Methodist Society and Crossroads to form the Kilgore Methodist Circuit. The first pastor of the Kilgore Circuit was the Rev. F.J. Browning. His salary was set at $600, although $32 went unpaid. There were 376 members in the three churches on the circuit, and three church buildings valued at $1,250, but no parsonages.

By 1902 the Kilgore Circuit had grown to five congregations with five churches, one parsonage, and a membership of 379. The pastor’s salary was still $600 and was paid in full that year. Kilgore withdrew from the Circuit in 1931 when the Rev. Bob Pool was named their first full-time minister.

Originally, the church building was a wood structure located approximately near where the Pirtle Methodist Cemetery (established in 1850) is today.  In 1903, the congregation purchased nearly an acre of land and soon moved the building next  to the current church property.   This original building was destroyed by a windstorm, possibly a tornado.

The next church building had a smaller sanctuary but included a room used for Sunday School and fellowship gatherings.  This building was also constructed of wood; but, in 1984, a brick veneer was added when the building was refurbished.  It was destroyed on May 6, 2002, by an early morning blaze that completely leveled the structure. However, the resilient congregation was not to be denied. They quickly organized, solicited timely donations, toiled many hours of painstaking labor (individually and collectively), and met on Easter Sunday of 2003 in their new sanctuary and fellowship hall, believed to be only a stone’s throw from the original structure.

Pirtle has its own cemetery on a 2.75-acre tract about one-quarter mile north of the church, which is governed by an association separate from the church. The earliest burial site dates back to 1850 for the community’s founder, George Washington Pirtle.