Church of the Assumption

The plaque says Czech was used alongside Latin in this parish. The Handbook of Texas says perhaps 90 percent of Czech immigrants were Catholics in their homeland and most kept to the church in Texas, where Czech Catholic benefit societies grew up beside the parishes: the KJT for men in 1888 and the KJZT for women in 1897. West's larger wave of Czech and German newcomers came after 1900, drawn by the railroad and university lands, so the congregation of 1892 predates it. The town's Westfest now celebrates that heritage.

What the plaque says

Church of the Assumption This congregation originated as part of earlier church in Martinville (now Tours). After the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad came through the area about 1890, church members in west received permission from the Bishop to erect their own sanctuary in 1892. The Rev. John Geleissner served as first pastor of the new church. Masses were conducted in Latin, but the Czech language was also used in services. The original wooden building, destroyed by fire in March 1903, was replaced by a brick sanctuary that same year. It was replaced by a third structure in 1956. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 14 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Hill County Courthouse — 15 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.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 17 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 17 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of West — 0.2 mi
• West — 0.3 mi
• The Crash at Crush — 0.5 mi
• First Baptist Church of West — 0.5 mi