Historical Marker
Blanconia (Old N2) Church
Beeville, Bee County · Texas
Erected 1985
Blanconia is older than its name. John and Michael Keeting acquired a half league from the state of Coahuila and Texas in 1834, and the settlement grew there, in Refugio County until Bee County was formed in 1857. A post office application in 1888 gave the place the name Blanconia, for Blanco Creek. A one-teacher school had twelve pupils in 1905. The population peaked near 200 in 1914, and by the early 1930s about 25 people remained. The post office was discontinued after 1930, and the church that moved here in 1888 outlasted it.
What the plaque says
Blanconia (Old N2) Church The first Baptist church in Refugio County was organized on April 22, 1855, and met in the Doughty Schoolhouse near Refugio. In 1865, the first sanctuary was erected (5 mi.W) and named for the cattle brand of member and benefactor N. R. McDaniel. the Blanco Baptist Association was organized at the "N2" Church in 1873. In 1888 the fellowship moved to Blanconia where the first sanctuary on this site was built in 1891. One of the oldest Baptist churches in South Texas, Blanconia Church served as a nucleus for growth of area churches and has ordained several pastors. (1985)
Where it stands
28.40037, -97.41146 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Fannin Memorial Monument — 17 miThe 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.
- Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — 17 miA rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.
- Presidio La Bahía — 17 miA Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.
- Goliad State Park and Historic Site — 18 miMission Espíritu Santo on the San Antonio River, a mission ranch whose herds seeded Texas cattle country, rebuilt from ruin by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.