Avalon Missionary Baptist Church

Avalon grew from settlers along Chambers Creek in the 1860s, the Handbook of Texas says: the John, Taylor, Loyd, Martin, Davis and Youngblood families, among others. William John reportedly named the place, and Patrick Alderman became postmaster when the office opened on August 3, 1881. An 1884 state gazetteer found two steam gins and gristmills, three churches, a school, two physicians and a druggist. The post office closed in 1907 and mail went through Italy until a new one opened in 1937. Avalon Warehouse, Avalon Gin and Avalon Road Works kept the village in business early in the century.

What the plaque says

Avalon Missionary Baptist Church Originally known as Mt. Nebo Baptist Church, this congregation was organized on July 6, 1879, by elders Josiah Leake and S.C. Talley and 16 charter members: J.C., Isabel, and Sarah Martin; W.L. Pierce; J.P. and M.F. Giles; William Hendricks; William and N.L. John; M.E. Ratliff; M.K. Yarbrough; R.F. and M.E. Lattner; M.C. Steward; Alice Godfrey; and Melvina Kiley. Early worship services were held in the Muscrat School and under an arbor. A sanctuary was built in 1924-25. Sunday school facilities and a parsonage were added later. This church has served Avalon for over 100 years. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 13 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 21 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Hill County Courthouse — 24 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant — 3.7 mi
• Nash Public School — 4.3 mi
• Sand Lake — 4.5 mi
• Chambers' Creek — 5.1 mi