Pearl Baptist Church

The church began at Bee House, four miles west, and the Handbook of Texas tells the story of that place. It started in the 1850s as Boyd's Cove, for James Boyd. When residents applied for a post office in 1884 they asked for Bee Hive, for the many bees in local cliffs and caves, but the postal service issued Bee House. By the mid-1890s there were a general store, a corn mill, four churches and 150 residents. A Masonic lodge met upstairs in the two-story schoolhouse from the mid-1880s until 1916.

What the plaque says

Pearl Baptist Church This church was organized in 1884 under the guidance of the Rev. E. Berry, a pioneer area missionary and preacher. Originally located in the Bee House community (4 mi. W), it was first known as the Bee House Missionary Baptist Church. Early worship services were held in the Masonic lodge hall that also served as the community schoolhouse. When the church relocated here in 1889, the congregational name was changed to Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church. The surrounding settlement was then known as Wayback, but later renamed Pearl. Early settler and rancher Charles T. Karnes sold three acres of his property to the church for their first sanctuary at this site. The small frame structure was used for worship services until 1949. The congregation met for church services on the fourth Sunday of each month until 1957, when its first full time pastor was secured. A tabernacle, built about 1908 on the boundary line between the Baptist and Methodist Church properties, has been the site of many revivals. Summer brush arbor meetings were held before construction of the tabernacle. For over a century the Pearl Baptist Church has played a significant role in the area's history. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 21 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.
• Hancock Springs Park — 26 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.

More markers nearby

• Pearl Methodist Church — steps away
• Pearl School — 0.6 mi
• Purmela Baptist Church — 6.6 mi
• King Baptist Church — 7.7 mi