First Baptist Church of Celeste

Celeste exists because Kingston refused a railroad bonus. When Kingston's officials offered no incentives, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe platted a town three miles north, where it crossed the Katy, and named it for a Santa Fe official's wife, the Handbook of Texas says. It dates the platting to 1886 where the plaque says 1887. A post office opened in 1886 and three churches were meeting by 1888. Celeste incorporated in 1900, reached 1,022 people by 1926, then fell to 518 by the mid-1960s before reviving.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Celeste Organized by four charter members, the First Baptist Church of Celeste was begun in 1887, the same year the town was platted by the Santa Fe Railroad. The Rev. Jim Price was called as first pastor. A two-story building erected on South Third Street served both the church and the local Masonic Lodge. The building was destroyed by fire in 1907, and a larger structure was completed in 1910 on the same site. A new sanctuary was built on the corner of Third and Cockrell streets in 1970. This church has been part of Celeste history for over a century. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 13 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• Birthplace of Mack Harrell — 0.3 mi
• Audie Murphy — 0.3 mi
• Headwaters of the Sabine River — 2.2 mi
• Kingston Baptist Church — 3.2 mi