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 The Emmanuel Episcopal Church was built in 1856 and the sanctuary is one of the more significant church buildings west of the Mississippi. Its structure is the oldest Protestant church building west of the Mississippi in use without major modifications. The Emmanuel congregation organized in 1853 when the Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church of Philadelphia sent the Rev. Joseph Wood Dunn to the Lockhart region. The church met in a school house with its first congregants.
Money was a scarce or non-existent commodity in the 1850’s. Rev. Dunn cast around for inexpensive constructions methods and he and the church members settled on a type of concrete, probably learned from local Mexican-American artisans, of mixing caliche, sand and gravel. The result is a Gothic – Spanish style structure with thick whitewashed walls some two feet thick. Four members of the church agreed to roof the building, if Rev. Dunn would get the walls and windows built. The good preacher had to personally guarantee a $600 advance, and he collected donations from as far away as Philadelphia to repay the note. The church was completed on August 22, 1856.
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