First Baptist Church of Gatesville

Church life in early Coryell County depended on traveling preachers, who moved from place to place and sometimes stayed two or three months. The Handbook of Texas names a Baptist church at Coryell Church in 1854, a Methodist church at Gatesville the same year, and a Presbyterian church at Rainey's Creek in 1858. A Christian church was running by the mid-1860s. Germans and Wends brought the Lutheran church, with St. John's at Coryell City in 1889. Catholics had no church in the county until 1940 and traveled to Lampasas or Waco.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Gatesville Organized in 1856 with fewer than a dozen members, this congregation has been a part of Gatesville history for more than a century. The first meeting of the congregation was held in the Coryell County Courthouse, and early worship services were conducted in the homes of members. The Rev. W. A. Mason was the congregation's first pastor. A stone building was erected in 1866 to serve as a community school and house of worship for all denominations. The Baptist congregation met in the Union Church until 1872, when its first sanctuary was built on the corner of Bridge and 7th streets. An increase in membership necessitated the building of a larger sancturary. This property was acquired, and a new frame building was completed in 1883. It served the congregation until 1936, when it was replaced by a larger structure. Additional facilities were built over the years to accommodate the growing programs of the church. An important part of Gatesville's history, this congregation continues to honor its founders and pioneers while serving the community with ongoing outreach programs. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 18 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Bosque Museum — 25 mi
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.
• Hamilton County Courthouse — 29 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 33 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.

More markers nearby

• Gatesville — steps away
• Coryell County Courthouse — 0.2 mi
• Lincolnville Community — 2.1 mi
• Fort Gates — 3.6 mi