Grayson Bible Baptist Church

The evangelist who started this church was a Cooke County native. According to Wikipedia, John R. Rice was born in 1895, attended Decatur Baptist College, graduated from Baylor in 1920, and pastored at Plainview and Shamrock before leaving the pulpit in 1926 for evangelism. He broke with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1927 and held revivals promoted by J. Frank Norris. In July 1932 he organized the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle in Dallas, and in 1934 he founded The Sword of the Lord there, which moved to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1940.

What the plaque says

Grayson Bible Baptist Church On the evening of Monday, June 22, 1931, John R. Rice began a revival service on the Grayson County Courthouse square. The revival took place where the 1870s courthouse had stood. That building was burned to the ground in May 1930 during mob violence that caused the death of an African American man who had been accused of a crime. Businesses and homes of African American residents were also destroyed. The revival's location -- in the center of Sherman -- was a perfect one. Large crowds of people attended, and the revival lasted for over a month. When Rice asked attendees to present themselves to organize a new church, forty people answered the call, and on July 16, 1931, the Fundamentalist Baptist Church was organized. On the evening of July 28, a tank was constructed on the courthouse lawn and a Baptismal service was conducted. The congregation soon built a tabernacle at the corner of South Montgomery and East Cherry, and the first service in the building was held on Sunday, September 12, 1931. The church has changed locations several times through the years, and the current structure was constructed in 2004 on East Highway 82. During the late 1940s the church's name changed to Central Baptist Church, and again changed in 1973 to Grayson Bible Baptist Church. The church has actively supported mission work and outreach. During the 1950s a church bus was sent to nearby Perrin Air Force Base to bring soldiers to church services. Grayson Christian Academy was established in 1973 as an outreach ministry of the church. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 6.4 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 11 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Park of Old Settlers Association of Grayson County — 1.5 mi
• Austin College — 1.8 mi
• Fred Douglass School — 2.4 mi
• First Texas Interurban — 2.5 mi