The congregation of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Granbury, Texas, was recorded as being started on May 7, 1873, by Addison and Randolph Clark as they were building AddRan College in Thorp Spring, Texas, later known as Texas Christian University, that same year. Throughout the over 150 years of life, the church has had fluctuating membership numbers as the congregants were molding the mission and values of the church.
After their Confederate battalion collapsed at the end of the Civil War, the Clark brothers headed back to their families. In his memoir, Randolph wrote, “On May 22, 1865, we shouldered our knapsacks… and began the long tramp homeward.” As they arrived, the brothers learned that their family had moved to an “ideal spot where the counties of Hill, Johnson, and Ellis join,” which became Hood County. While Addison stayed on the land to assist the family, Randolph moved to Fort Worth only coming back to the area in 1873 when asked by his brother for help establishing AddRan College. Soon after moving back, Randolph, now a student of the Stone-Campbell Movement, found a group of Campbellites gathering in the Hood County courthouse. The Clark brothers became members and called it the home church of the students of AddRan College.
On February 20, 1894, the decades-long fight between worshiping with instrumentation or acapella within the church came to a head. Several AddRan College students asked Addison Clark if they could bring in an organ for worship. Addison agreed and even helped prepare the night’s service. That night, J.A. Clark, the Clark brothers’ father, presented a written petition that was signed by over 100 of the congregants stating that if the organ was played, they would leave the church.
Addison took the petition and read it over, causing a heavy anticipation throughout the church. He spoke with his brother, Randolph, and then, based on the witness account by Mrs. Mason Fuller, raised his voice and right hand, saying, “Play on, Miss Bertha.” After hearing this, over 140 people walked out, “headed by Father Clark, his cane punctuating the hymn.” The group that stayed to listen to the organ music became First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Granbury, while the group that left ended up becoming The Granbury Church of Christ. According to Dr. Don Vinland, historian of the Stone-Campbell movement in the South, the “reverberations of the conflict were felt throughout the state and beyond its borders.”
In December 1895, AddRan College moved to Waco, and later Fort Worth, taking the Clark brothers, their families, students, and several congregants with them. The membership declined to 30 people but the congregation in Granbury kept meeting and in April of 1889 they built the original frame building that sat on the corner of Houston and Bluff street. During an oral interview, congregation member Ann Pinckard stated that when she and her husband joined the church in 1937 the church “consisted of a little one-room frame building one block off of the square. It had no facilities inside at all, not even water or a bathroom.” Even with this description, they could barely afford to keep the doors open. Hearing their cries in the early 1940s, Mr. Morgan, Dean at Brite Divinity School, began to send students to the church each Sunday to preach.
The church was consistently having to tread water until the De Cordova dam began its installation on December 15, 1966. The Brazos River Authority wrote that the population of Granbury jumped from 5,443 people in 1960 to 17,714 in 1980, a 69.27% increase. This raised the membership numbers of the church and allowed them to hire their first full-time minister, Jimmy Walker. With his energetic vigor, he brought in a younger crowd. The church grew so rapidly that the men built a fellowship hall, choir loft, baptistery, and classrooms within the original building. By April of 1986, the congregation moved to their current location on Highway 377. Though there had been a great increase of members, especially younger ones, there were several that did not appreciate the energy behind the pulpit. The pastors and Brite students that had been keeping the church alive did not like what this pastor was doing to “their” church. The biggest reason they did not like Jimmy Walker, though, was the fact that he always wore his cowboy boots to preach and after six years, they pushed their first full-time minister, Jimmy Walker, to leave his position. By the end of the whole affair, Jimmy actually ended up leaving the ministry altogether. With his departure, the church’s membership dropped from 250 to 60 and even in 1990 the membership roles still showed only 70 adults and 10 children.
Max Jones, a progressive minister known for marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and fighting for the rights of LGBTQIA+ community members, was called to preach. In 2002, Pastor Jones asked a lesbian couple to help teach the children’s Sunday School. Many of the members were angry with this decision, but Jones said that they would all have an open discussion during the Sunday School hour so that everyone would be able to voice their hopes and fears within a safe space. Someone in the congregation told the Gay Alliance that this was going to happen, and this group filled the room for the meeting, creating a space that was nonconducive to the conversation. The non-inclusive members, interestingly the younger generations, decided to leave, dropping the membership yet again, from 300 to 80.
On March 11, 2020, the church building closed its doors in response to the worldwide COVID pandemic. Still wanting to communicate and worship, a team of six members began live-streaming worship services through YouTube and Facebook. Since this time, the church is filling again with rising membership numbers as well as growing its online presence and is being streamed around the world weekly. The church currently includes almost 400 members and a large staff of 12, 7 being ministers.
Picture: Addison Clark headstone in Thorp Spring Cemetery
Taken by Author: Emily Newby on October 24, 2025
Bibliography
Brazos River Authority, “A Look Back At The History Of Lake Granbury And The Decordova
Bend Dam,” Accessed on April 22, 2024.
https://brazos.org/About-Us/News/Current-News/ArticleID/2129.
Clark, Joseph Lynn. Thank God We Made It: A Family Affair with Education. Austin, TX: The
University of Texas Press, 1969.
Clark, Randolph. Reminiscences. Wichita Falls, Texas: Lee Clark, 1919.
Pinckard, Ann. Interview by Jone Snider, Granbury, Tx, 1995.
Snider, Jone. “History of First Christian Church of Granbury.” Presented at First Christian
Church of Granbury 150th Anniversary Celebration, Granbury, TX, October 21, 2023.
—————-. Interview by author. April 2, 2024.
Texas Water Development Board, “Granbury Lake (Brazos River Basin),” Accessed on April 22,
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https://www.twdb.texas.gov/surfacewater/rivers/reservoirs/granbury/index.asp#:~:text=
Impoundment%20of%20water%20began%20on,top%20width%20of%2017%20feet.
Vinzant, Don. The Restoration Movement, “Granbury Church of Christ History: A Historical
Sketch of the Granbury Church of Christ, Granbury, Texas,” May 1983, accessed on April 2, 2024. https://www.therestorationmovement.com/about.htm.