First Baptist Church of Grapevine

Grapevine's Baptists had an older church nearby. The Handbook of Texas names Lonesome Dove Baptist Church, founded in 1846 and about five miles northwest of Grapevine, as the first church in the area. It places Grapevine First Baptist in the early 1850s, earlier than the plaque's formal organization on December 25, 1869, with eighteen charter members. By the mid-1880s a state business directory listed Methodist and Baptist churches among the town's institutions, and daily stages ran to Dallas and Fort Worth at five cents a mile.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Grapevine Baptist in the Grapevine prairie area began meeting in their own homes as early as 1846. Worship services later were held in a log schoolhouse on what is now Dooley Street in the community of Grapevine. On December 25, 1869, the pioneers gathered to form a Baptist Church. The eighteen charter members chose A.J. Hallford as their first Pastor. The Church's first sanctuary was completed in 1871. Over the years, First Baptist Church of Grapevine has grown steadily in membership and has provided significant service and leadership to the community. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Worth Stockyards — 19 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 19 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 19 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 19 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.

More markers nearby

• Grapevine — steps away
• Grapevine Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Thomas Easter Cemetery — 1.8 mi
• Missouri Colony — 3.3 mi