In any small town in Texas, there’s a good chance you will find a small-town church that is active or that has been abandoned. In a North West Texas town sits an abandoned church along with several houses next door that are abandoned. The church is the Old Methodist Church in Electra, Texas.

Next door sits another building that has the same brick and looks to have been connected to the church at one time. It could have been some sort of church community center or housing related to the church. Next door and slightly in front of this building sits several abandoned houses. This leads me to believe it could have been owned by the church and been used as the preacher’s house. The other house looks to have been a nice house at one time. I’m not sure if the house is part of the church or just a neighboring house that the owners moved out of and left it.

The Old Methodist Church in Electra, Texas – History

The Old Methodist Church in Electra, Texas

 

Electra was once a prospering oil boom town that grew fast and large and then the population started to decline. I go into a little more detail about the towns in an article I wrote on my personal site (I will eventually share on Vanishing Texas). During the oil boom, the grew quickly and there was a lot of money that was spent on housing, businesses, schools, and churches. One of the churches is the old Methodist Church.

This old Building Looks Its Part of the Church

 

One of the private Facebook Groups I’m a part of mentioned that the old church was originally a Methodist Church and then turned into a Pentecostal Church. Eventually, that congregation moved on and for years the church sat abandoned. At some point, a local woman bought the church with the intention of restoring it during a period when the town started growing again. But the growing stopped and the restoration stopped. Next, there was a fire that the fire department was able to quickly put out. But with the neglect, the roof caved in. With the added weight the floors started to collapse. If you look through the windows you can see pews sinking into the basement.  

This old house looks like it belonged to the church at one time

 

 

I was doing a little more research and came across another comment from someone that said they had a family friend who purchased a church in Electra and believes this is the one. The woman moved into the house next door and convert the old church into a theater. But as you can tell that never happened.

Abandoned Church in Wichita County, Texas

 

I haven’t been able to find much information on this old church and I will continue to add more info as I find it.

We are always in search of more history or personal stories about each of the locations that are shared at Vanishing Texas. It is a way to preserve Texas history before it is lost and forgotten. As always please share your stories by commenting below or reaching out via email or social media. We will add your stories, photos, and vintage images if we can.

This abandoned house is next door to an abandoned church. Can you imagine what this old house looked like when it was loved?

 

Please Note: My original article was a short summary of this location and can be found on my personal site. That article will not be updated.

About the Images

The Old Methodist Church in Electra, Texas pictures were taken at about 5 PM in harsh sunlight. I used my Sony a6000 and my Sony SELP18105G E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS lens. The images were then edited with Adobe Lightroom CC, Topaz Labs Denoise AI and Topaz Labs Sharpen AI,  Aurora HDR, and Luminar AI to clean up the image.