First Baptist Church of Palacios

William H. Travis came from Oak Cliff Baptist Church in Dallas in fall 1904 to start a college where students raised produce to help pay their way. The charter came on January 28, 1905, and the church was organized two days later with seven members. The school became Palacios Baptist Academy in 1912 and reached 103 students that year, but debt of about $44,000 and waning support closed it in 1917. The campus housed aged Baptist ministers until 1921, and only the brick girls' dormitory stayed on the original site.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Palacios The Rev. William H. Travis formed a school and Missionary Baptist church in Palacios in 1905. That year, the congregation became known as First Baptist Church. In 1906, the Texas Baptist Convention chose Palacios as the site for its Baptist Training Union Encampment, bringing missionaries and teachers into the community each year. At the corner of Welch and Second Street in 1909, the church built a sanctuary, having worshiped previously in homes and at the encampment tabernacle. The congregation grew over the next decades, moving in the 1970s to a larger building at this site, where it has continued to grow and serve its community. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Indianola — 21 mi
  The site of Texas's second port, where Morgan's steamships, Army freight and the first refrigerated beef passed until the hurricanes of 1875 and 1886, now mostly under Matagorda Bay.
• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 25 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.

More markers nearby

• St. John's Episcopal Church — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church of Palacios — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Palacios — steps away
• Palacios Preparatory School — 0.2 mi