Hickory Grove Baptist Church

The cemetery the plaque says came first lies beside the church, and a road runs through it. A TXGenWeb survey finds three sections: an old north side, a newer south side and a separate Black cemetery behind the north side. The oldest legible stones are for William Adams, who died September 13, 1854, and an Adams infant who died in May 1855. Confederate soldiers lie here, and so does a Union soldier who served in a Wisconsin infantry regiment. As of 2015 the 1912 auditorium-style church was used for exercise and youth programs.

What the plaque says

Hickory Grove Baptist Church Cross Roads Community, located in northern Rusk County and southern Gregg County, recognized a need for a cemetery and church in 1911. In 1912, five acres of land which adjoined the pre-existing Hickory Grove Cemetery on the west side were purchased. Construction of a church began in late 1912. In 1930, the name was changed from Missionary Baptist Church of Christ at Hickory Grove to Hickory Grove Baptist Church. In 1991, the building was relocated across Rusk County Road 284 to land donated by the Still family. The original sanctuary was replaced in 1992 with a new auditorium. For over a century, Hickory Grove Baptist Church has been an active source of support for the community and those in need. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 5.7 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 10 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 29 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 29 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.

More markers nearby

• Gum Spring Presbyterian Church (New Danville) — 5.9 mi
• The New Deal Era in Kilgore — 6.1 mi
• Kilgore — 6.2 mi
• Site of Alexander Institute — 6.3 mi