Clear Creek Baptist Church

The railroad town nearby changed its name almost as often as its site. Families named Pickett settled the area in the early 1850s, and it was Pickett Valley, then briefly Brummersville in 1865. Dan W. Taylor, who came about 1854 with a large herd, kept a store on Taylor Creek where a post office called Taylor's Creek opened in 1873. Slaughtersville followed in 1878. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe built through in 1882, the post office moved beside the tracks and was renamed for Harris Kempner, a Galveston merchant and railroad director.

What the plaque says

Clear Creek Baptist Church According to oral tradition, this congregation was organized in 1872 as the Clear Creek Missionary Baptist Church by six families who resided in this area of east Lampasas County. The church petitioned for membership in the Leon River Baptist Association in 1876 and sent delegates to the associational meeting the following year. The Rev. Ambrose W. Elledge (d. 1884) served as first pastor and is buried in the nearby cemetery. In 1889 Joseph M. and Alice Carnes formally deeded land at this site to the church deacons, although a sanctuary had been here since the late 1870s. During the last few years of the 19th century, the congregation joined the newly formed Lampasas Baptist Association and grew to a membership of 66 under the leadership of The Rev. C. C. Greer. In 1912, a tornado and then a hailstorm caused damage to the sanctuary, but repairs sufficed to keep the building standing until the decision to rebuild was made in 1940. Over the years a brush arbor and later an open air tabernacle were used for revivals. Baptisms were held in the Lampasas River (5 mi. S) until 1975. The oldest legible tombstone in the nearby church cemetery is dated 1872. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 15 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Inks Lake State Park — 35 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 37 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Oakalla — 6.4 mi
• Smith Cemetery — 8.6 mi
• Battle Branch — 10 mi
• The Community of Briggs — 13 mi