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This week’s random image is of the old Dodson Prairie’s St. Boniface Catholic Church in Palo Pinto County Texas.
This article was originally posted to EvolutionaryDesigns.net/photography on July 3rd, 2015
Dodson Prairie’s St. Boniface Catholic Church
Dodson Prairie’s St. Boniface Catholic Church is a hard church to find. Its not near any major highways and the closest highway doesn’t have a sign pointing you in the right direction. At least there’s a sign on the lesser highway near Strawn, Texas.
As you take one of the country roads to the church, you pass by large acreage farms, ranches, and a few houses. But other than there is nothing out there When you pull up to the church its on a peaceful hill over looking the countryside. Back when this church was built, it was one of the bigger churches in the area but over the years, the number of members lessened until the church congregation was merged with a larger church in Strawn, Texas. Now there is only a handful of members that still maintain and attend services.
I found a few stories about the Dodson Prairie’s St. Boniface Catholic Church but most of them are years old and might be out dated to the churches current events. During our visit, I couldn’t find anything about the church not even a name for it. I figured out the church’s name from an article that Jeff Clark wrote about the church back in 2013.
I am still researching this old church and I hope that it is still active and it is continued to be maintained. These old churches are growing hard to find. If I ever find myself in the area on a Sunday morning on a Wednesday night during their services, I might have to stop by and learn more about the old church.
About the Image
This shot was taken just after sunset on Friday June 19th, 2015 with a Canon EOS Rebel T1i and Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II SLR Lens. I then processed the image with Adobe Lightroom and Topaz DeNoise to remove as much noise as possible without softening the details of the image.
About James
James, enjoyed exploring your website!
So glad you see beauty and interest in preserving things with Texas history.
When we were first married in the early 1960’s we stayed at the Baker Hotel overnight and for white linen dining. Employees were still doing massages etc but we declined those services….
Years later my husband and a few hunting partner friends leased acres in the Dodson Prairie area with St.Boniface Catholic Church across the road. This was in the 1970’s for almost a decade. He leased it from Jim Nowak who lived with his father nearby. We left when the land owners were thinking about using it for building. (At the time there were no structures standing; a cypress wood one had been in place but was taken to the ground– probably by storm. One of our craftsmen hunting friends used some sound wood pieces to make a few picture frames. We enjoy using one to this day at the Ben Franklin fireplace corner of our den.)
What I remember about the cemetery (listings of those buried there are on the Internet) was the numerous Old World spellings on tombstones. My thinking is these were from families who immigrated from Eastern Europe to work at Thurber in the mines. This is now well archived by the Gordon Center on I 20 which is an ongoing cooperative public site with TXDOT/ Mrs.W.K.Gordon Jr’s foundation and Tarleton University students.
One evening we – my husband, myself and our young sons- attended Mass at the “Protestant back pew” of St.Boniface celebrated by a priest regularly sent on a limited basis (once a month?)
There was a small farm near the church where we could hear the guineas and chickens from our activities of day camping and hunting on the lease.
One event remembered by my husband and our older son is still fresh in their memories. It was an isolated small tornado which appeared on the lease not far from them. They were amazed to see a funnel form and then be taken back up into its cloud. This was different than the “Dust Devils” which whirl around and can raise dust kids have fun running into. This formed from a cloud formation rather than heated wind on land. After it was over, the guys looked at each other with questioning eyes. “Did we really see that?!”
Beth Kisor, Fort Worth,TX