First Baptist Church of Plano

Plano's first schools and newspaper were private ventures. The Handbook of Texas says the Plano Institute opened in 1882 under W. F. Mister, and the Plano Academy, run by Matthew C. Portman, was later taken over by the public school system, which was organized in 1891. The first newspaper, the Plano News, began in 1874, two years after the Houston and Texas Central connected the town to Dallas. The Baptists built their town sanctuary the next year, in 1875, so the congregation grew up beside the schools, the press and the railroad.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Plano This congregation, established as the Spring Creek Baptist Church in 1852, built its first sanctuary on Spring Creek about two miles south of here of land owned by Jacob Routh. Formally organized in 1853, the congregation joined several area churches in 1854 to form the Elm Fork Baptist Association. Plano's emergence after the railroad reached town in 1872 prompted Spring Creek to change its name to Plano Baptist Church and build a new sanctuary here in 1875. Plano Baptist became a charter member of the Collin Baptist Association in 1886. A new sanctuary was built here in 1898, and prior to 1900 Plano Baptist organized a Young People's Union and Aid Societies for older women and young ladies. About 1936 the congregation changed its name to First Baptist Church to acknowledge its status as the first Baptist church established in Plano. Growth in church membership mirrored that of Plano in the 1960s, and in 1970 a new sanctuary was built at this site. First Baptist helped establish the Prairie Creek Baptist Church and a Chinese mission in 1972, Hunter's Glen Baptist Church in 1976, and Hillside Baptist Church in 1982. The church continues its global missionary efforts and its many local outreach programs. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 11 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 — 16 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 — 17 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 — 17 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

• First Christian Church of Plano — 0.4 mi
• Shiloh Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Plano Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Plano Mutual Cemetery — 0.8 mi