Camp Meeting Creek

 Here's an item I've been sitting on a long, long time. I cross Camp Meeting Creek whenever I go to town.  flows in an easterly directly in Kerrville crossing Medina Highway before finally emptying into the Guadalupe.

I've wondered for years where the camp meeting was--and who sponsored it. The Presbyterians had an assembly ground where Schreiner University is today. The Methodists have the Methodist Encampment on the west side of Kerrville. There were probably others. 

Camp Meetings were a common religious social event, some  lasting a week. People gathered from all around the area for worship, singing, preaching, visiting.

According to a story in the June 18, 1989, Kerrville Daily Times, in 1860 there was a large camp meeting at Camp Ives on Turtle Creek.  It was at that meeting William Pafford, Kerrville's first paid teacher, was licensed to preach.    Which brings up the next question--Where was Camp Ives?

Seems it was a military outpost on Turtle Creek four miles north of Camp Verde in Kerr County and operated from early October 1859 to the end of  January 1861 when the soldiers left to prepare for the oncoming War Between the States.