Bruceville Baptist Church

Lucien N. Bruce gave the land for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas station in 1882, and the new town took his name. The Handbook of Texas says Bruceville had 289 people by 1900, with a lumber and hardware store, two general stores, a grocery, a hotel, two churches and a school. A state bank opened in 1907, borrowed heavily in the First World War, and closed in 1927 after the severe drought of 1925 left farmers unable to repay. The town fell to twenty-five residents by 1970, then joined Eddy in one city government in the mid-1970s.

What the plaque says

Bruceville Baptist Church This church was organized as Salem Baptist Church about 1870-71 in the town of Mastersville. Early worship services were held in the home of the minister, and in an arbor. The church name was changed in 1884 to Mastersville Baptist Church. The congregation moved 2 miles south to the new railroad town of Bruceville. In 1896 a sanctuary was built that stood until 1975 when a new church building was erected in its place. The church supports many outreach programs in the U.S. and in foreign nations, and has served the community for more than 125 years. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 14 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 17 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 17 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 17 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Site of Bruceville Methodist Church — steps away
• Martin Irons — 0.5 mi
• First Baptist Church of Eddy — 1.9 mi
• Roy Bedichek — 2.7 mi