Olin Baptist Church

Olin was a mail stop before it was a church's name. The Handbook says the community formed about 1890 and got a post office in 1898, which Louis D. Gordon ran from his barbershop. Olin kept the horses for the Hamilton-Hico mail and passenger hack, and by 1910 it had a telephone exchange, a store, a cotton gin, two churches and a school. The mail was ordered to Hico in 1908. The school burned in the fall of 1938 and was never rebuilt, so children rode buses to Hamilton, Carlton or Hico.

What the plaque says

Olin Baptist Church Founded in 1878 by five charter members, this church originally was named Kings Chapel. It was also known as Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church and as Dry Fork Church. The church deacons purchased land at this site in 1899, and when a post office for the community was granted under the name Olin, the church was renamed Olin Baptist Church. Serving the community for well over a century, this church has offered a variety of worship and educational programs and has supported both domestic and foreign missionary endeavors.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 12 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.
• Dublin Bottling Works — 20 mi
  The Erath County plant that bottled Dr Pepper with cane sugar from 1891 until a 2012 settlement ended its Dr Pepper license, and that still makes its own sodas the same way.
• Meridian State Park — 24 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.

More markers nearby

• Hamilton County, C.S.A. — 4.4 mi
• Carlton Cemetery — 5.1 mi
• Old Hico — 7.4 mi
• Fairy Cemetery — 7.4 mi