County Line Baptist Church

The plaque says the first church building went to the Mud Springs community, now Joe Lee. The Handbook of Texas explains that place. Jefferson Reed, a member of Robertson's colony, gave the land and named it for a large spring that kept the ground muddy for cattle. He donated land for a school, which had eighty-three pupils in 1903. His daughter Millie Reed McLean renamed the settlement in 1912, joining the names of storekeeper Joe Reed and blacksmith Lee Underwood. Reed and McLean cemeteries lie near the church.

What the plaque says

County Line Baptist Church In 1856, the Rev. Jesse G. Thomas and others organized this church. Initially named Eanon (Enon) Baptist Church, it was originally located near the line separating Bell and Milam Counties (2 mi. SE). The church grew out of the meetings which area Baptists held in the home of John and Amanda (Childers) Craddock. Although the Civil War led to the decline of the church, residents reorganized in 1868. Members moved the original church building to the Mud Springs (now Joe Lee) community near the end of the 1800s. The building was later replaced after being destroyed by a storm. Today, more than 150 years after its founding, County Line Baptist Church continues to serve as a spiritual leader in southeast Bell County. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 14 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.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 18 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 30 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 32 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.

More markers nearby

• Miriam A. Ferguson Birthplace — 3.0 mi
• Alvin Ailey — 3.7 mi
• Joseph "Joe Tex" Arrington, Jr. — 3.7 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Rogers — 3.7 mi