First Christian Church of Wills Point

Two sources name the Rev. John T. Poe as the organizer. A biography on a Restoration Movement history site says he organized the Christian church at Wills Point in 1886, while a town history page dates the founding to 1882 under his name. Poe was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1836 and died at Longview in 1917. He was Texas editor of the Gospel Advocate and opposed instrumental music in worship; when Longview's church added an organ in 1895, he left with about 25 others.

What the plaque says

First Christian Church of Wills Point Founded in 1882, the congregation first met in the Presbyterian church, and a cotton gin pond north of town was used for baptisms. A church building was erected in 1886, and in 1891 a baptistry was added. The first in town, it was offered for use by other area churches. A parsonage on Pecan Street was bought in the 1920s. A succession of ministers have served here, and this congregation has been instrumental in the training of many student pastors from Texas Christian University. The church has played an active part in many community activities. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 15 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.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 25 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 30 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

• White Rose Cemetery — 0.9 mi
• County Seat War — 1.1 mi
• Dallas-Shreveport Road — 1.1 mi
• Elbert Gray — 1.2 mi