First Baptist Church of Terrell

Terrell was young and growing fast when these Baptists began meeting monthly. The Handbook of Texas says the Texas and Pacific created the town in 1873, that it incorporated in 1875, and that by the mid-1880s it held about 3,000 people, two banks, two hotels, three flour mills, three cotton gins, three weekly newspapers and nine churches. Private schools had opened as early as 1874. In 1885 the North Texas Insane Asylum arrived, the Handbook says, to relieve crowding at the state institution in Austin, giving Terrell public institutions as well as a depot.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Terrell The Rev. J. B. Daniel (d. 1884) organized this church in 1876 and served as its first pastor. The congregation started with 13 members, who met once a month for services. The first church building was a small frame structure erected on this block in 1879. The Women's Missionary Society, established the same year, continues to serve this fellowship today. In 1905 a new brick sanctuary was built. The stained glass windows from it were transferred to the present church building, completed in 1956. Membership in this congregation has steadily grown to its current (1975) total of about 850.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 1.6 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• 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.

More markers nearby

• Homesite of Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt — steps away
• Rockwall and Brin Church of Christ — 0.2 mi
• The American National Bank of Terrell — 0.2 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Terrell — 0.3 mi