First Baptist Church, Hebron

The town the congregation moved to was young. The Handbook of Texas says Hebron grew up near the Bridges Settlement of 1843, took its name from the biblical town and had a post office by 1890. In 1902 the Red River, Texas and Southern Railway built through, in the same years the plaque places the church's move. At one time the town had three cotton gins. It was incorporated briefly in the mid-1960s and permanently only in the mid-1970s, after growth between Dallas and Denton boosted its population.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church, Hebron Organized in 1883 at the Willow Springs School, this congregation was known as Big Valley Baptist Church during the early years of its existence. A Sunday School, Willow Springs Union Sabbath School, was begun in 1886. E. C. Bramblett served as the first pastor. He was replaced by the Rev. John Turner, who was succeeded after one year by the Rev. R. G. M. Eiland. During Eiland's pastorate, toward the latter part of the nineteenth century, the congregation and Sunday School united with a nearby fellowship to become the Cemetery Hill Church and Union Sabbath School. In the early 1900s, during the pastorate of the Rev. D. B. Allen, the congregation relocated to the new town of Hebron and adopted the name Hebron Baptist Church. Their first sanctuary was completed in 1920. Over the years the fellowship has been active in missionary work and has produced several ministers from its membership. Now known as First Baptist Church, Hebron, the historic congregation has contributed much to the heritage of the area and has provided significant service and leadership to the residents of this part of Denton County. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 17 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 17 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 17 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Fair Park — 18 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.

More markers nearby

• Liberty Baptist Church — 2.3 mi
• Frankford — 3.1 mi
• The Hedgcoxe War — 4.2 mi
• Baccus Cemetery — 4.3 mi