Friday, May 30, 1997
Landmark Cedar Gap church finally passes on
By Ken Ellsworth / Abilene Reporter-News
CEDAR GAP - Cedar Gap, once named Coats, was never large and
over the years it just became smaller and smaller. But once the
community had a school, church, cemetery, post office, store,
and blacksmith shop. Of those things, only the cemetery, school,
and church still stand.
Soon, though, there will be even less to remind locals of the
old community, because all that will remain will be the pretty
little Cedar Gap Cemetery and the old cinder block school.
That is because the the old Cedar Gap Baptist Church, which
has been standing since 1897, though not so firmly in recent years,
is coming down just one year shy of accomplishing the feat of
lasting 100 years.
Right now, the old church, long a landmark on U.S. Highway
83/84, just 12 miles south of Abilene, has been reduced to only
a shell. It is slowly being carted away in pieces for its old
lumber and other materials.
Folks hate to see it go, but know there is no choice. For several
years the building, covered by gray siding in the 1960s, has been
listing badly to the south and has been in danger of falling.
"We would love to have redone the building, but the doors
and the front of the church had been changed and so it would not
have qualified for a historical marker, even if we had done it,"
said Linda Spurlin, secretary/treasurer of the Cedar Gap Cemetery
Association. "Besides that we just did not have the funds."
The association, she said, though, was hopeful of erecting
another roofed structure for funeral services.
L.G. Smith is a native of Cedar Gap and the owner of the Hilltop
Gas Station, located one mile north of the church.
"Yeah, it makes me sad, but there was nothing else that
could be done about it," he said of the church's demise.
"When I was a kid growning up in the late '40s, I always
went to church over there. We used to walk, joining other families
as we walked along, including the members of the Graham family.
It was B.F. Graham who founded the church, I think, and the land
was given by the Kidd family. Well, it is sad, but it seems so
long ago, it all seems like a dream."
B.F. Graham's grandson, Thomas Graham, 80, still lives in the
area, but is not too sad to see the old place go because his wife's
grave and his own plot lie dangerously near the leaning building.
Graham, who is the oldest surviving descendent of the founder,
said he had a lot of good memories about the place.
"You know, I think I might be the last member of that
old church. When they stopped meeting some 30 years ago because
only a few people were attending, everybody said they would change
their membership to another church, but I never did change. So
I guess that makes me the only member left," Graham said
and chuckled.
Graham's late wife, Inez Hinson Graham, wrote a short history
of the church in 1976.
"The building was always painted white until some newfangled
siding was put on it during the fall of 1964," Mrs. Graham
wrote, showing, I think, a certain distaste for the new gray siding.
She also wrote this: "A complete record of the church
has been kept, including minutes indicating that early members
were 'churched' for dancing, gossiping, lying, and fighting."
I asked Thomas Graham what being "churched" meant.
"I think that means they expelled you. They were a lot
stricter back then," he said.
This column covers the cities and communities of this part
of West Texas. To contact Ken Ellsworth, call (800) 588-6397 or
(915) 673-4271, Ext. 381, or write to P.O. Box 30, Abilene, TX
79604.
Send a Letter to the Editor about This
Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address) of This Story
to A Friend:
Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
|
