Original Site of First Baptist Church of Alta Loma

Alta Loma's story starts before its church. Asa Brigham received a grant on Hall's Bayou from the Mexican government in 1830, in country where Karankawa people had ranged. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was built through in 1878, and in 1883 an improvement company platted the townsite and sponsored a school, depot, store, churches and houses. James W. Skirvin led the first settlers in 1894, the year the post office opened, and the church followed in 1895. Santa Fe absorbed the town in 1978.

What the plaque says

Original Site of First Baptist Church of Alta Loma Original site of oldest church in Alta Loma; second oldest Baptist church on Galveston mainland. Organized on Nov. 10, 1895, in a local hotel; 26 charter members. Established Arcadia Baptist Church, 1945. Purchased "U. S. S. Houston" Memorial Chapel, 1946. Helped organize Galveston Baptist Association in 1949. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Space Center Houston — 13 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Galveston Island State Park — 13 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 17 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• Moody Mansion — 18 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

More markers nearby

• Hitchcock Depot — 0.8 mi
• Dairy Industry in the Santa Fe Area — 2.3 mi
• U. S. Naval Air Station (Blimp Base) — 2.4 mi
• Runge Park — 2.6 mi