First Baptist Church of Beaumont

The Stone Church the congregation built in 1903 has a second life. The church sold it in 1923 to Captain W. C. Tyrrell, who donated it to the city for a public library, and the site is now the Tyrrell Historic Library. Groundbreaking for the Calder Avenue church was March 10, 1924, and the first service there was April 5, 1925. The Southeast Texas Baptist Association was founded in the church on February 10, 1888, and membership stood near 300 in December 1898. The congregation spent more than 84 years on Calder before moving.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Beaumont The Rev. J.W.D. Creath and the Rev. J.H. Fant organized this church in 1872. Baptist and Methodist congregations joined in 1877 to erect a frame church building at the corner of Main and Fannin streets. For the belfry, the Baptists donated a bell originally used on one of Captain W.E. Rogers' Neches River steamboats. The Rev. H.C. Weymouth became the fellowship's first resident pastor in 1882. Membership doubled after a 10-day revival led by evangelist William E. Penn in 1885. The new members included Pattillo Higgins, later one of the chief promoters of the Spindletop drilling. In 1887 the congregation constructed its own red brick church at the corner of Pearl and Forsythe streets on property donated by George W. Carroll, Pattillo Higgins, and Dr. W.H. Smith. After the Spindletop oil boom of 1901, this church, led by the Rev. J.A. Smart, sponsored 4 missions in Beaumont and Gladys City. In 1903 the brick church building was replaced by a larger limestone structure, but it soon became too small for the growing fellowship. The present edifice was erected on this site in 1924-1925, during the pastorate of the Rev. J.H. Pace, who served the longest term here, 1924-1938. In recent years, the church's educational facilities have been enlarged. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McFaddin-Ward House — 5.0 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 8.7 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• Village Creek State Park — 9.5 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 23 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.

More markers nearby

• City of Beaumont — 3.5 mi
• Texas' First Rice Mill — 5.2 mi
• Blind Willie Johnson — 5.2 mi
• Aubrey Wilson "Moon" Mullican — 5.4 mi