First Baptist Church of Corpus Christi

The plaque names J. M. Carroll as the church's first missionary pastor, which is a reason to follow him. James Milton Carroll, born in Arkansas in 1852, pastored in Anderson, Corpus Christi, Lampasas, Taylor, Waco and San Antonio. He led the Baptist General Convention of Texas's Education Commission, was the first president of San Marcos Baptist Academy and the first president of Oklahoma Baptist University. His booklet The Trail of Blood, published in 1931, the year he died, argues for an unbroken line of Baptist churches back to the apostles, a Landmarkist reading of church history.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Corpus Christi On August 17, 1878, a group of local residents met in the home of S.T. Foster at 702 Antelope Street to organize the First Baptist Church of Corpus Christi. Under the leadership of the Rev. J.W.D. Creath, a noted pioneer baptist missionary, the church was constituted with eight charter members. In September 1878, the congregation joined the Blanco Baptist Association, which had been formed five years earlier. Worship services for the church were conducted in a renovated blacksmith shop at the corner of Mesquite and Starr Streets until about 1908. In 1910 the congregation built a brick sanctuary at Mesquite and Taylor, which served until new facilities were occupied on Ocean Drive on March 23, 1950. From the late 1870's, when Corpus Christi was a small isolated coastal village, to the present, the First Baptist Church has led in the development of the area. Known for its community service ministries and its active support of baptist programs, the church has also been instrumental in the formation of several local congregations. Ministers here have included such prominent baptist leaders as Dr. J.M. Carroll, the church's first missionary pastor, Dr. D.B. South, the Rev. R.O. Cawker and Dr. C.E. Hereford. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 2.2 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 3.1 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 3.4 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 3.4 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Alta Vista Hotel, Site of — 0.4 mi
• Camp Scurry — 0.6 mi
• Sisters of the Incarnate Word — 0.6 mi
• Moses Menger Elementary School — 0.9 mi