Mount Olive Baptist Church

Masontown took its name from two brothers, Sam and Raiford Mason, who bought the first property there in 1867. The people who settled around them were formerly enslaved, arriving from Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia. At one time the community held two Baptist churches and as many as 200 residents, but by the 1980s it could no longer be picked out as a distinct neighborhood. Mount Olive, organized in 1889, outlasted the neighborhood where it began.

What the plaque says

Mount Olive Baptist Church The Mount Olive Baptist Church congregation was organized March 3, 1889, in the vicinity of Masontown, one of Austin's earliest African American settlements. The early years of the congregation coincided with a period of intense optimism and community activism in the historic neighborhood (bounded by E. 3rd, E. 6th, Chicon, and Waller streets). A number of significant African American religious and educational institutions were established in and around Masontown during this period, including Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson College), where the church's organizational meeting and early worship services took place. In 1909, under the leadership of the Rev. J.H. Harrold, the congregation moved to its first church building at 1603 E. 4th Street in the heart of Masontown. Changing space needs led the congregation to relocate to 1113 Leona Street in 1939 during the tenure of the Rev. A.H. Brown, and later to 1800 E. 11th Street during the pastorate of the Rev. H.A. Sneed. Still located in an area of Austin settled early by African Americans, the Mount Olive Baptist Church congregation continues to maintain its historic ties to Huston-Tillotson College and actively pursues local mission programs in the community. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — 0.3 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.3 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.3 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Blackshear Elementary School — steps away
• Tillotson College — steps away
• Holy Cross Catholic Church and Community — steps away
• Richard Overton — steps away