King Baptist Church

The Handbook of Texas explains the name. The place was once Stringtown, because settlers built their homes in a line along Cowhouse Creek. In 1882 residents asked for a post office, and the postal service rejected Stringtown. They submitted King instead, for Henry King, a local storeowner, and John W. Seay became the first postmaster. By the mid-1880s King had a steam gristmill and cotton gin, three churches and a district school, and farmers shipped cotton, corn and oats. The post office closed in September 1953, and mail went to Gatesville.

What the plaque says

King Baptist Church This church traces its history to 1875, when a Baptist congregation organized and held worship services in the Stringtown log schoolhouse. Baptism services were conducted at Cowhouse Creek. In 1880 Monroe and Mary Puett deeded two acres of land to the Baptist Church. A new sanctuary was built in 1901 using volunteer labor. In the 1930's the church changed its name to King Baptist Church. Weekly services began in 1951. Church members built a new sanctuary and educational facilities in 1974. The church has served the area for more than 120 years. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 26 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.
• Mother Neff State Park — 26 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Hancock Springs Park — 28 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.

More markers nearby

• Pidcoke Cemetery — 6.9 mi
• Pearl School — 7.1 mi
• Pidcoke Baptist Church — 7.2 mi
• Pearl Methodist Church — 7.6 mi