Written by Clay Riley – To accommodate the various faiths and religions of the many Camp Bowie personnel during WWII, chapels were contracted and built. Eleven chapels were built in all.

 

Over a period of several years, Frank Hilton a fellow historian and I, have been trying to discover the fate of the 11 chapels that were at Camp Bowie during WWII. We knew of the location of three of the chapels here in Brownwood, but did not know what had happened to the others.

With the help of Vicki Roberts of Winchell, locating the chapel at Marak, a Moravian Czech community near Cameron, Texas and Rev. Curt Norman of Stephenville, identifying the chapel in Stephenville, Texas, two more were located. I searched through online newspaper archives and located news articles identifying two more of the “lost chapels”.

The next chapel found was the one on the 1600 block of Melwood, here in Brownwood. It was originally the Melwood Avenue Church of Christ when moved from Camp Bowie, now Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana Church. The last to be found was the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Eastland, Texas.

So we now have a list of known chapels;

1.) Cornerstone Fellowship Church at 377 and 6th Street – Brownwood.
2.) First Church of The Nazarene at 7th Street – Brownwood.
3.) Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana Church at 1600 Melwood – Brownwood (formerly Melwood Church of Christ) – Brownwood.
4.) Seventh Day Adventist Church at 2211 Avenue E – Brownwood.
5.) Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in – Eastland, Texas.
6.) Marak Saint Cyril Methodius Catholic Church – near Cameron, Texas.
7.) St Luke’s Episcopal Church – Stephenville, Texas.

The chapels were constructed in two different sizes, one being a two-story structure like the Cornerstone Fellowship Church and the other was a single story, smaller chapel like the Mexicana Church on Melwood.

There were eleven chapels at Camp Bowie, but we are not aware of the location of the other four of the original eleven. They may no longer exist or are at locations yet to be discovered. There are two other churches in Brownwood that resemble one of the two basic structures of the Camp Bowie Chapels, but have not been positively identified as having been from Camp Bowie.

The chapels were purchased, by small congregation churches, for a nominal fee by those that applied for one and had their applications approved by the War Assets Administration. The cost of moving the structures and re-assembling them, was an expense the churches were willing to pay. This same procedure occured at many Wartime Military Installations across Texas.

There were over 400 structures moved from Camp Bowie, with many relocated here in Brownwood or Brown County. Of the many building that blended into our communities, the chapels were special.

Photos: by author and google images.

This and many other stories are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway.

Volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society are there to assist you in your family history research.

Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years. 

Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at; pvgsbwd@gmail.com.