Hewitt Baptist

Hewitt began with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad in 1882 and took its name from George A. Hewitt, a railroad director. The Handbook of Texas says a post office opened in 1884, and in the 1890s the town had a gristmill, a gin, a grocery and sixty to a hundred residents. A small state bank organized in 1912 and closed voluntarily in 1916. Hewitt voted to incorporate in 1960, and commuters to Waco made it the county's fastest-growing community in the 1980s, with the population rising from 630 in the late 1970s to 8,983 in 1990.

What the plaque says

Hewitt Baptist This congregation was organized on November 4, 1894, by 20 local members of White Hall Baptist Church (5 mi. NW) with the help of White Hall Pastor J.B. Reaves, and the Rev. J.L. Ward and the Rev.J.W. Thomas. Hewitt Baptist joined the Waco Baptist Association and built a sanctuary here in 1895. The 1895 church building was destroyed in a 1924 storm and replaced with a larger facility. Due to steady growth in its membership new worship centers were built here in 1959 and in 1988. Hewitt Baptist Church sponsors a variety of ministries and continues its historic role in the community. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 7.3 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 7.6 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 8.0 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 8.0 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Brazos River Transmission Electric Cooperative — 1.0 mi
• Zion United Church of Christ — 2.5 mi
• Central Presbyterian Church — 3.1 mi
• Providence Sanitarium — 3.8 mi