Prairie Point Church and Cemetery

Prairie Point's big day was the memorial picnic. A 1922 newspaper account on the Navarro County site puts the crowd at an estimated 4,000, with visitors from Bazette, Chatfield, Roane, Kerens and Corsicana. The Rev. L. C. Howell gave the memorial address, a basket dinner was spread under the oaks, the Kerens Municipal Band played, and county candidates made short speeches. The cemetery then held 822 graves. The Handbook of Texas says people traveled miles to Bazette's oak grove for camp meetings, and that a yearly picnic and revival still ran in the 1980s.

What the plaque says

Prairie Point Church and Cemetery Pioneer area settlers met in 1855 to organize a Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Five years later, the congregation built a sanctuary at this site on land donated by charter member Zachariah Westbrook (1809-1878) and his wife, Mary (Agnew) (1813-1896). The Westbrooks' donation also included the original tract of the adjacent cemetery. The earliest marked grave there is for A. J. Morgan, who died in 1871. Prairie Point Methodist Church disbanded in 1910, but the building continues in use as a community center for the surrounding rural area. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 14 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• Bazette Baptist Church and Cemetery — 1.1 mi
• Josiah Martin Daniel — 5.0 mi
• Kerens — 5.0 mi
• Kerens Presbyterian Church — 5.2 mi