First Baptist Church of Panhandle

Before the Baptists organized in 1897, Panhandle City worshiped together. Thomas Cree, the pioneer remembered at the first-tree marker on US 60, helped organize the town's first church in 1889, and in 1892 townsmen built an interdenominational community church building. A sanatorium and several doctors' offices made the town a haven for health seekers. Panhandle had 300 people in 1900, and when it incorporated in 1909 it had several grain elevators, three churches, two banks, telephone service and about 600 residents.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Panhandle First Baptist Church has served residents of Panhandle (originally Carson City later Panhandle City) since the late 1800s. In 1897, a group of Baptist residents, under the direction of the Rev. William H. Younger, came together to organize a congregation. The church reorganized in 1905 under the Rev. J. T. Burnett. Members first met in various locations; they began construction on their own building in 1906. The early years of First Baptist Church were a dynamic time. By the 1920s, the church had grown considerably as Panhandle experienced an oil boom. The Rev. A. F. Johnson, who established mission churches before coming here, ministered during this period of growth. Members constructed a new building, on this site, to house the large congregation. However, by the 1930s, the debt incurred by the building and the movement of the area residents to Borger, coupled with the effects of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, led to play financial hardship for the church. Under the Rev. George Thompson, members worked together to raise money, paying off the church's debt in 1940. First Baptist Church has a rich tradition of giving to others. The congregation has a long history of helping the needy in the Panhandle. Members have also been heavily involved in missions, sending groups throughout the Western United States and opening a local mission in 1997. The church has also done mission work in international destinations such as Brazil and Mexico. In 1997 fire destroyed the congregation's 1971 building. However, the church rebuilt and dedicated a new complex on this site in 1999. Today, First Baptist Church continues to serve as a spiritual leader in the community of Panhandle. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carson County Square House Museum — steps away
  The 1880s ranch cottage that is the oldest house in the town of Panhandle, at the heart of a twenty-one-building museum of the plains from mammoth hunters to the oil boom.
• Gem Theatre — 16 mi
  Claude's small-town movie house of 1915, restored by the Armstrong County Museum and remembered for the scene in Hud where Homer and Lonnie Bannon sing along to Clementine.
• Hutchinson County Museum — 22 mi
  Borger's museum on the three-mile Main Street of a 1926 oil boom town that drew 45,000 people in ninety days and was put under martial law in 1929.
• Lake Meredith National Recreation Area — 23 mi
  A Canadian River reservoir in 200-foot breaks, built to water the Panhandle's cities, that fell to a record 26 feet deep in 2013 and still rises and falls with the drought.

More markers nearby

• Methodism in Panhandle — steps away
• Temple Lea Houston — steps away
• Finch-Lord-Nelson and the Founding of Panhandle City — steps away
• Carson County — steps away