Kingston Baptist Church

Nick Hodges gave the Katy its right-of-way and a depot site in 1880 and, in exchange, got to name the station. He chose Kingston, reportedly because he surrendered with his Confederate comrades at Kingston, Georgia, the Handbook of Texas says. A post office opened that year, the Kingston Beacon began in 1882, and Calhoun College ran in town from 1885 to 1897. In 1890 Kingston had 600 people, a steam gin, a gristmill, three churches, a hotel and a saloon. By 1914 it had 300, and its post office closed after 1930, though the community endured.

What the plaque says

Kingston Baptist Church Founded in 1880 by 26 charter members, this church was formed when the town of Kingston was created on the route of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. When the Gulf, Colorado, & Santa Fe Railroad built another line three miles north of here in 1886, growth in Kingston was halted. Many businesses moved to Celeste, the town formed at the new crossing. The church remained in Kingston, and built a second sanctuary in 1947. A new building was constructed in one week in 1985 by volunteers from Kingston area churches and East Mountain Baptist Church. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 9.9 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 22 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.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 26 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 27 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Birthplace of Audie Murphy — 1.2 mi
• Audie Murphy — 3.0 mi
• First Baptist Church of Celeste — 3.2 mi
• Birthplace of Mack Harrell — 3.4 mi