West Fork Baptist Association

The new association was a daughter of an older one. J. M. Myers's 1896 history of the Elm Fork Association, which met at churches in Collin and Dallas counties, records that its Lonesome Dove, Mount Gilead, Bear Creek and Birdville churches asked for letters of dismission so a new association could form at Birdville. Myers called Elm Fork the mother of West Fork. He wrote that the departing churches took a large share of the membership and one of its best preachers, J. A. Freeman. He places this at the 1856 meeting, a year after the plaque's date.

What the plaque says

West Fork Baptist Association On Oct. 12-13, 1855, representatives of 12 frontier churches met in the Birdville Baptist Church to form the West Fork Association of United Baptists. Created to serve area congregations, the association provided a vital link in the early efforts of the Baptist Church in North Central Texas. Membership increased as more settlers entered the area and new churches were established. The association held its last meeting in 1886 when leaders realized the need to form smaller, more localized bodies. Many of the groups created after 1886 are still active today. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Worth Stockyards — 5.4 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 5.7 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 7.5 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 7.9 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Birdville Church of Christ — steps away
• Pioneer Birdville Schools — steps away
• Dr. Riley Andrew Ransom — 2.2 mi
• I. D. Parker Public Cemetery and Homestead — 3.0 mi