First Baptist Church of Murphy

The church's own newspaper story is in the record. On November 25, 1924, the McKinney Daily Courier-Gazette announced that Murphy's Baptists would dedicate a new $5,000 church house on Thanksgiving, November 27, with preaching, a dinner spread in the building and the Rev. J. Ben Snider of McKinney, pastor for eight years, offering the dedication prayer. The paper dated the church to August 19, 1900, noted that J. B. Wright had served as Sunday school superintendent for 24 years, and said Murphy Baptists took a Thanksgiving offering for the orphans of the Buckner Home.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Murphy In 1900, twelve years after the founding of Murphy, local resident Mrs. May Cockrell directed the formation of this congregation. Aware of the need for a Baptist church in the community, she hosted the organizational meeting in her home. Present were many of her friends, including the Rev. G.W. McCalla a Baptist preacher from Plano, and Bob Coleman of the Plano Star-Courier. The same year Mrs. Louisa Brown donated land at this site for construction of the sanctuary. Since 1900 the congregation has made many significant contributions to the community. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 8.9 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 12 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Fair Park — 19 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 19 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• McMillen Cemetery — 0.3 mi
• Murphy Community — 0.8 mi
• Corinth Presbyterian Church — 1.9 mi
• Wylie Methodist Church — 2.4 mi