Trinity Mission

Rural Churches were an integral part of ranching communities and also served as social centers, schools and shelters. The congregation of Trinity Mission in Spur, Texas, led by Carl and Kate Senning, began in 1910 through a petition to the Rt. Rev. Alexander C. Garrett, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese. Sometime between 1910 and 1911 funds were raised by local persons and a donation from the Cathedral Branch of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Diocese of Dallas to fund a building campaign. 

Occasional services were held prior to September 1911 by Bishops A.C. Garrett and Edward A. Temple in various Spur venues. 

On September 1911, Archdeacon E. C. Seaman began holding regular services Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning after the 4th Sunday of each month, first in the Methodist Tabernacle and finally in the Presbyterian Church. These places were graciously loaned for the purpose. 

While the congregation continued to meet, it was not until sometime in the 1920s that the church was built. The Spur Ranch donated a lot at the corner of 2nd and Burlington in the new town of Spur as a mission location with the condition that the lot deed would revert to the ranch if church no longer existed. Spur, Texas, was founded on land that belonged to the S.M. Swenson family and was some of the same pastures that made up the Espuela Land and Cattle Co. of London. The town was laid out and lots sold beginning in 1909. 

When the small church building was finally completed, it seated about 50 people on the handmade wooden pews. An altar stood at one end of the church, allegedly built from the headboard of the Abilene bishop. Two restrooms and a sacristy (a room in a church where a priest prepares for a service and where worship items are kept) were on the right and left respectively upon entering the building. The mission had a wood floor, a wood-burning stove for heat, electric lights in the ceilings and a raised altar area. The walls were covered with fiber board made of sugar cane fibers, the windows held colorful glass panes and the exterior was covered with wood shingles.

The Spur church was named Trinity Mission and the name lasted until the late 1940s when the war effort and a general move to larger cities depleted the population of Spur. Because the Episcopal Diocese decided in 1948 that the populace of Spur were no longer using the little building, the diocese made arrangements to move it to Hereford, Texas, to another congregation who needed a building for worship. The structure was renamed Saint Thomas Episcopal Church. This arrangement lasted until 1955 when the little church was again moved to Brownfield, Texas, to serve yet another small group of Episcopal members who renamed the church the Good Shepheard Episcopal Church. Services were held at that location until Christmas 2018.