Plainview Mennonite Church (Plainview, Texas, USA)
Mennonites were attracted to Plainview, a vast treeless region of the High Plains in the Texas Panhandle located some 75 miles (120 km) south of Amarillo, as part of their search for cheap farm land during the early 1900s. Earlier in 1888, Plainview received a charter and became the county seat of Hale County, and the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway reached the town in 1906. The growing city became an agricultural center and incorporated in 1907. Its population approached 3,000 by 1910. The early Mennonite settlers in the Plainview area organized a church, and the congregation was accepted into the Kansas-Nebraska Mennonite Conference of the Mennonite Church in 1908. The following year, A.I. Yoder, a Mennonite Bishop living in Happy, Texas, some 40 miles (64 km) north of Plainview, assumed oversight of the congregation which had grown to 43 members.
On 27 May 1909, the <em>Gospel Herald</em> printed a report by "A Sister" in the Plainview congregation who noted:
On May 14 Bro. David Garber of Colorado [a Bishop serving in pastoral ministry at East Holbrook Mennonite Church, Cheraw, Colorado] came into our midst and preached six sermons. On Saturday afternoon we held examination meeting; all expressed peace. Saturday preparatory services was [sic] held and on Sunday communion, at which time all except one partook of the sacred emblems. On Monday evening three souls were added to the church by confession, formerly being Methodists, but now they have cast their lot with us . . . . The church has been encouraged, and the members warned and advised to live more fully up to the rules of the church in the matter of apparel . . . .
The <em>Family Almanac For the Year of Our Lord, 1916</em>, printed by the Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, listed Andrew Brenneman, J. M. Kreider, and George Landis as ministers and John R. Snyder as deacon at Plainview. The congregation had a listed membership of 42 in 1920. Apparently, most of the church's members moved away from the Plainview area during 1922-23. The congregation, with six members, was listed in the Mennonite Yearbook for the last time in 1926.
Bibliography
Unrau, Harlan D. In Pursuit of Land, Health and Mission: A History of Mennonites in the Mountain States Region. Printed in Canada by Blitzprint Inc., 2007.
| Author(s) | Harlan D Unrau |
|---|---|
| Date Published | January 2012 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Unrau, Harlan D. "Plainview Mennonite Church (Plainview, Texas, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. January 2012. Web. 25 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Plainview_Mennonite_Church_(Plainview,_Texas,_USA)&oldid=67178.
APA style
Unrau, Harlan D. (January 2012). Plainview Mennonite Church (Plainview, Texas, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 25 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Plainview_Mennonite_Church_(Plainview,_Texas,_USA)&oldid=67178.
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