Memorial Baptist Church of Temple

The church's founder had already opened a college. According to the Handbook, John Hill Luther welcomed Belton and Bell County to Baylor Female College on September 13, 1886, in a new three-story limestone building, and by the second year rising enrollment forced him to enlarge it to twice its size. Six years later he organized the Temple chapel. His daughter Zollie married the Temple banker W. Goodrich Jones in 1890, and Jones went on to become known as the father of Texas forestry.

What the plaque says

Memorial Baptist Church of Temple Less than a decade after its founding in 1881, Temple was fast developing as an important commercial center. Reflecting that growth, plans for this church began in the early 1890s. It was formally chartered as Memorial Mission Chapel on June 5, 1892, with 12 members: 9 women and 3 men. The founder and first pastor was The Rev. John Hill Luther, retired president of Baylor Female College, now the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. The church name honored the preacher's son, J.H. Luther, Jr., who died of tuberculosis at age 17. The first building was a small chapel in an early south side addition platted by J.E. Moore, on whose farm the original Temple townsite was located, and W. Goodrich Jones, Luther's son-in-law. Moved to a new site in 1905, the chapel served the congregation until facilities were built here in 1913. Memorial Baptist Church has served its community through such programs as a radio ministry, begun in 1939, and the formation of new churches. It has been associated with several well-known Baptist preachers, including the Rev. H. Carroll Smith and the Rev. B.B. Blaylock. A symbol of Temple's early growth, the church continues to be an important part of the area's religious and cultural heritage. (1991) [Supplemental plaque: The Memorial Baptist Church congregation relocated to this campus in 2005.]

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 4.2 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 21 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.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 26 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• Blackland Experiment Station, Substation No. 5 — 1.6 mi
• Greathouse Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board — 2.4 mi
• George Valter Brindley, Sr., M.D. — 2.9 mi