First Baptist Church of Jacksboro

Rice C. Farmer's college grew out of a local push for schools. The Jack County Educational Institute, organized in 1883, finished a three-story brick building for grammar and high school pupils on April 3, 1884, and later advertised for someone to found a college. In May 1891 it agreed with the new North Texas Baptist College Convention to open one in Jacksboro. Classes began that September with six teachers and 113 students, and enrollment reached 291 in 1892. Unable to compete with the many colleges of the 1890s, the county's only college closed in 1897.

What the plaque says

United States soldiers still manned nearby Fort Richardson when this church was organized with seven charter members in 1875. The congregation met in the Masonic Lodge hall and county courthouse before erecting their first church building in 1889. One pastor, the Reverend Rice C. Farmer, was largely responsible for the location of North Texas Baptist College in Jacksboro, 1891-1897. The second church building was erected in 1906, the third in 1928-1959. The Rev. Alvin R. Bilberry (b. 1885) served the longest term as pastor here, 1925-1952. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 0.8 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 26 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Jack County — steps away
• Butterfield Stage Line — 0.3 mi
• Mobilization Site of Lost Battalion — 1.0 mi
• Wizard Wells — 11 mi