Odem First Baptist Church

The plaque names J. F. Janicke as the church's clerk in 1912; in 1929 he became the first mayor of newly incorporated Odem. The town had begun as a switch and siding called Dofin on the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway and grew by selling farms carved from the Brazado Pasture, once Coleman-Fulton land. Its early living came from market vegetables. In the fall of 1930 an entire trainload of radishes left E. C. Caldwell's Las Palmas Farms, and in season up to twelve cars of radishes a day rolled out of Odem.

What the plaque says

Odem First Baptist Church ON SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 1912, BAPTISTS OF ODEM ORGANIZED THEIR OWN CONGREGATION. REV. R. A. COHRAN, GENERAL MISSIONARY OF THE BLANCO ASSOCIATION, WAS CALLED TO ASSIST. WITH J. F. JANICKE AS CLERK AND W. B. JONES AS MODERATOR, REV. COHRAN READ THE ARTICLES OF FAITH AND CHURCH COVENANT, WHICH WERE ADOPTED BY THE CHURCH. WITH NO BUILDING OF THEIR OWN, THE CONGREGATION MET ONCE A MONTH AT THE METHODIST CHURCH. LATER THE ODEM TOWN SITE COMPANY DONATED LAND AT KLINE AND SELLERS STREETS, AND A FRAME SANCTUARY WAS COMPLETED. IN THE 1930s, BAPTISMS WERE PERFORMED AT SINTON AND SODVILLE. THE CHURCH LATER MOVED TO TURNER STREET, WITH SEVERAL MEMBERS CONTRIBUTING LABOR AND MATERIALS FOR A NEW BUILDING. R. G. McDANIEL, SUPERINTENDENT OF ODEM SCHOOLS, WAS CHAIRMAN OF THE BUILDING COMMITTEE AND PAINTED THE NEW CHURCH, BUILT FOR $15,000. THE FIRST SERVICES IN THE NEW SANCTUARY WERE HELD IN MAY 1935. A TWO-BEDROOM PARSONAGE WAS COMPLETED IN 1941. THE MEMBERSHIP NUMBERED 160 AT THIS TIME AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL WAS GROWING. HOWEVER, THE CHURCH WAS UNABLE TO SECURE BUILDING MATERIALS DURING WORLD WAR II. A 1943 CANDLELIGHT SERVICE HONORED CHURCH MEMBERS SERVING IN THE WAR. BILL SPRADLEY WAS THE CHURCH'S ONLY WORLD WAR II CASUALTY. IN THE LATE 1940s, A FARMHOUSE WAS MOVED TO THE CAMPUS FOR AN EDUCATION BUILDING. IN SEP. 1950, THE CHURCH CELEBRATED BUILDERS DAY (LATER HARVEST DAY), BENEFITING A BUILDING FUND AND STARTING A TRADITION WHICH CONTINUES TO THIS DAY. A NEW BRICK SANCTUARY WAS DEDICATED IN JULY 1951, AND NEW EDUCATION BUILDINGS WERE ADDED IN 1955 AND 1969. ODEM FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH HAS SERVED FOR A CENTURY AND WILL CONTINUE TO ENCOURAGE ITS NEIGHBORS AND COMMUNITY THROUGH MISSIONS, CHARITY AND OUTREACH. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 14 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Texas State Aquarium — 15 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 15 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 15 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Odem — 0.3 mi
• Meansville and Kaleta — 0.3 mi
• Bethel Baptist Church of Christ and Cemetery — 1.2 mi
• Calallen — 5.7 mi