Frost Baptist Church

On May 6, 1930, a tornado killed twenty-two people in Frost and injured more than fifty, the Handbook of Texas says. A newspaper compilation on the Navarro County site adds that it nearly erased a town of almost 1,000, left no church standing and overturned stones in the cemetery. National Guardsmen from Corsicana kept watch over the ruins, Corsicana sent 600 pounds of food, and the dead were buried in a mass funeral that Thursday. The sources I reached do not list the victims by name.

What the plaque says

Frost Baptist Church Led by the Rev. H. A. Conway, a small group of Baptists established this congregation in July 1890. Beginning with about twenty charter members, the church has grown steadily over the years. Early worship services were held once a month. Eventually, services were increased to twice monthly, and finally to every week. The first sanctuary, built on this site in 1890, was replaced by a larger structure in 1906. After it was destroyed by a tornado in 1930, a brick building was erected. It served the congregation until 1979, when it was razed to make room for a new sanctuary. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 20 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 20 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 21 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 28 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.

More markers nearby

• Frost — 0.2 mi
• City of Blooming Grove — 5.4 mi
• Mertens Baptist Church — 5.4 mi
• Blooming Grove United Methodist Church — 5.5 mi