First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs

The academy the members founded was run by the Pedernales Baptist Association from 1882 until 1889, when dissatisfied local citizens got the association to dismiss the governing board and appoint a new one. It reached a peak of 200 students. As state-funded schools drew pupils away and residents pressed for a public school, the association closed the academy. Its campus had a stone main building and two boarding houses, and the main building served as the public schoolhouse from 1889 until 1949. It was dedicated as a historic landmark in 1968.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs Organized June 1872 with 12 charter members and the Rev. G. G. Rucker as pastor. Led in forming Pedernales Baptist Association, 1873. Members W. T. Chapman, A. L. Davis and others founded Dripping Springs Academy, 1880. This sanctuary, built 1901, was dedicated in 1902. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pedernales Falls State Park — 12 mi
  The Pedernales stepping down over layered limestone east of Johnson City, a river that can turn from a placid stream to a torrent in minutes.
• Barton Springs Pool — 20 mi
  A three-acre pool in the bed of Barton Creek, fed by the fourth-largest spring in Texas at 68 to 70 degrees, and shared with an endangered salamander found almost nowhere else.
• Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park — 20 mi
  The Johnson City district of the national park: the Victorian house where Lyndon Johnson grew up, and the stone barns his grandfather built in the Johnson Settlement.
• Mount Bonnell — 21 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Dripping Springs United Methodist Church — 1.1 mi
• Driftwood Cemetery — 5.8 mi
• The Century-Old Wimberley Cemetery — 13 mi
• Wimberley Mills — 13 mi