First Baptist Church of Wylie

Nickelville was named as a joke, and the Collin County sources give two versions. One says that in 1883 men choosing a name for the post office remarked that no one in town was worth a plug nickel. In the other, Dr. J. F. Butler, the town's earliest settler, told a 1927 McKinney newspaper that the village wit, Uncle Tom Winn, named it because it was no bigger than a nickel. The first store there opened in 1876. When the railroad put its depot where Wylie now stands, Butler said, the older town suffered desertion and never recovered.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Wylie First Baptist Church of Wylie This congregation has its origins in the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church of Nickleville, which met in private homes prior to 1870. After the town became a part of the new community of Wylie about 1887, the church became known as the Missionary Baptist Church of Wylie. Members purchased land at the present site in 1905 and constructed a sanctuary. Continued growth led to the calling of a full-time pastor in 1914 and the expansion of the facilities for new programs. Known as first Baptist Church of Wylie since 1942, the congregation has upheld its commitment to education, worship and community outreach throughout its history. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 7.8 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.
• 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.
• Fair Park — 21 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 — 21 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

• City of Wylie — steps away
• Wylie Methodist Church — 2.2 mi
• St. Paul — 2.6 mi
• William Sachse Cemetery — 4.1 mi