Historical Marker
Fourth Missionary Baptist Church
Houston, Harris County · Texas
Erected 2007
The plaque names the Rev. E. S. Branch; the church's own history shows how long he stayed. Called on January 15, 1932, he took on a congregation of about seventy-five active members and soon paid off a $2,000 debt. He then served for 61 years, until his death on May 20, 1993. He moderated the Independent Missionary Baptist General Association of Texas at its golden anniversary in 1958, and the church became one of the first Black congregations in the Southern Baptist Convention. In November 1993 members voted 483 to 18 to call the Rev. Walter F. Houston.
What the plaque says
Fourth Missionary Baptist Church Organized as Watts Chapel in 1877, Fourth Missionary Baptist Church was established by the Rev. Henry Watts, a native of South Carolina. Watts arrived in Houston that same year, and with the help of fellow Houston ministers and deacons, secured a place of worship on Commerce Street. In 1883, he and church trustees purchased land and moved the church to West Broadway, and the congregation changed its name to Fourth Missionary Baptist Church in 1884. The church moved again to a location at the corner of Dowling and Lamar, rebuilding after a storm destroyed their building in 1900, and again after a fire in 1910. Under the leadership of the Rev. Alex H. Branch, the church moved in 1927. When the Rev. Branch passed away in 1932, members elected his son, Elridge Stanley Branch, as pastor. During the Rev. Dr. E.S. Branch's pastorate, Fourth Missionary Baptist Church moved here (1946) and attained its status as a leading Christian institution. Members have helped Houston residents in a variety of ways, including a kindergarden (1941), well baby clinic, food clinics, programs to help the needy during Christmas and a low-income housing complex. The church has also focused on missions, working closely with a Baptist church in Panama, organizing Bella Vista Church on East 36th Street in Houston and ministering in Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and the Philippines. The church has hosted the Missionary Baptist General Convention of Texas several times and in 1968 became the first black church to join the Union Baptist Association, an important step in the integration of churches in the state. Today, Fourth Missionary Baptist Church continues as a vital spiritual and social leader in Houston. (2007)
Where it stands
29.73902, -95.35744 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Emancipation Park — 0.5 miThe Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
- Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 1.3 miA museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
- Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 1.7 miTen historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 2.2 miThe oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.