This Website is dedicated to preserving the history and documenting the present of a unique and charming neighborhood in Kerrville, Texas–Methodist Encampment–which was born 100 years ago. It is intended to serve as:
– an archive for the material which was collected for the Texas Historical Marker application;
– a place where current and former residents and friends can share information about the houses here and the families who built and enjoyed them over the years;
– a space for documenting the current life of the community, its culture and environment; and
– an opportunity for those who live here to communicate with each other.
The birth of Methodist Encampment 100 years ago...
from Epworth-by-the-Sea to Mount Wesley
Watch a Power Point Presentation given on April 1, 2024 at the Centennial celebration of the first lots sold in Methodist Encampment. This beautiful and informative slide show starts nearly 300 years ago to explain how our hill, Mount Wesley, got its name. Did you know that Methodist Encampment’s beginnings were actually on the sea? Learn how it then came to be established in Kerrville. Includes historic newspaper clippings, vintage postcards, early deeds, plats, and surveys of our community. Watch now.
City of Kerrville Proclamation
Mayor of Kerrville presents Proclamation recognizing Centennial of Mount Wesley
Kathy Cicconi, who initiated the effort to bring the light back to the Lighted Cross on Mount Wesley
Linda Karst Stone, who spearheaded the Texas Historical Commission Marker for the Methodist Encampment Community
Evelyn Hickey, whose grandfather purchased the first lots of Methodist Encampment
Linda Bullard, developer and keeper of the MethodistEncampment.org website and Steward of the Little House of Peace Free Library
Mayor Judy Eychner, who herself worked at Mount Wesley and lived in Methodist Encampment
Methodist Encampment is featured in the May/June issue of Kerr County People Magazine! The piece about the ME Centennial begins on Page 16. A copy of the magazine is in the Little House of Peace Free Library (please return it). Read the full article here.
On April 1, 1924 the first lots in what would become Methodist Encampment were offered for sale at an all-day barbecue picnic of 500-600 Methodist ministers and lay people. The West Texas Encampment Association, an organization of the Methodist Church, had acquired 200 acres of Texas Hill Country land west of Kerrville with the help of the City Council and a private donor. It was beautiful unimproved woodland stretching from the Guadalupe River to the top of the hill which would become known as Mount Wesley. Part of the tract was to serve as the new home of Epworth-by-the-Sea, a Methodist Youth training program formerly located in Corpus Christie which had been completely destroyed by a hurricane several years prior. The other part was intended to provide vacation housing for Methodist ministers and active lay people. On that exciting day 90 lots were sold out of the 130 on offer, and Methodist Encampment was born.
Today Methodist Encampment no longer extends from the River to the Hilltop, but Mount Wesley still provides an enchanting environment for the original community of small homes, which now are nearly all year-round residences. The community has retained its character of a real neighborhood in the old-timey sense—neighbors still get together for potlucks and happy hours, walk up to the cross at the summit of Mount Wesley to observe astronomical events, chat in the narrow winding lanes as they walk their dogs, and appreciate their good fortune to live here. There are now 110 houses, nearly all completely renovated, modernized and enlarged and yet still retaining the quirky and magical quality of 100 years ago.
The current residents of Methodist Encampment have become the keepers of its history. On April 1, 2024, exactly 100 years from the sale of the first lots, they gathered to celebrate and honor the birth of their beloved community with another barbecue dinner at which they shareed their efforts to preserve its unique past and present.
We invite you to come along through these pages and explore the history, architecture, art, people and nature that is the most charming and unique Methodist Encampment.
