First Baptist Church of Colorado City

The emergency hospital in the church's story answered a storm that spared Colorado City itself. The tornado struck early on Monday, May 14, 1923, and ran through the Conway Ranch, the Spade community, Seven Wells and the northwest corner of Loraine. Tornado researcher Thomas Grazulis rated it an F5. Newspapers counted 23 dead, estimates of the injured ran from 200 to 250, and Red Cross and Chamber of Commerce officials put the homeless above 300. Bodies were taken to a Colorado City funeral home.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Colorado City Founded as a mission station in 1881 by The Rev. George W. Baines (1809-1882), a former President of Baylor University and in 1880s a Baptist State Convention agent. The Rev. Peter Turner, an Englishmen, organized the church in 1882. Building site was donated by U.S. Senator and ex-Governor of Georgia Joseph E. Brown, a Texas & Pacific Railroad investor, developer of Colorado townsite. A.W. Dunn, J.T. Hutchins, J.B. Putnam, Alf H.H. Tolar, and G.W. Waddell were church trustees. The original small box structure was meeting place of all denominations until destroyed by tornado in May 1884. It was replaced by a similar frame building. In 1890, Pastor J.C. Burkett reported 140 on roll. This church joined that year with other members of Sweetwater Baptist Association to implement charter for Simmons College (now Hardin-Simmons University). In pastorate (1895) of The Rev. B.H. Carroll, Jr., a 4-room structure was erected. Classrooms and basement, added later, became emergency hospital for tornado victims on May 14, 1923. In 1924, this and neighboring county formed Mitchell-Scurry Baptist Association. Present church was built in 1928; annex in 1961. Congregation has included many community leaders; it has been active in home and foreign mission fields. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heart of West Texas Museum — steps away
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.
• Lake Colorado City State Park — 5.9 mi
  A mesquite-plains park on a lake built in 1949 to cool a power plant, southwest of Colorado City, where controlled burns are bringing back the grassland and 300 bird species pass through.
• Scurry County Museum — 20 mi
  Snyder's county museum on the Western Texas College campus, with the rifle used to shoot the white buffalo, an 1878 chuckwagon and the millionth barrel of the Canyon Reef oil boom.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 24 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Preston C. Coleman — steps away
• Buffalo Trails — steps away
• Texas & Pacific Railway — steps away
• The Founding of Colorado City — 0.2 mi