Woodlawn Baptist Church

The church gave its name to the town. The Handbook of Texas says thirteen charter members organized what became Woodlawn Baptist Church as Bethesda Baptist Church, and that the town developed on land owned by W. B. Blalock. Texas Escapes says the church was later renamed and that its new name became the community's. A post office opened in 1874 after the Texas and Pacific came through in the 1870s. Early Woodlawn shipped cotton and fruit and had two general stores, a gin and a gristmill, and by the 1890s it had four gins and gristmills.

What the plaque says

Woodlawn Baptist Church Organized as Bethesda Baptist Church on July 21, 1850, with 13 charter members, most of whom had come from Mississippi or Alabama. Bethesda church building, erected in 1850, was moved in 1877 to a site donated by Capt. Henry L. Berry. For 95 years, until 1945, services were held only on the fourth Sunday of each month, sometimes furnishing an occasion for "dinner on the ground." In 1958, the congregation adopted its present name and completed this modern building on a site given by Mr. and Mrs. George C. Ives. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 6.9 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 7.3 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 7.3 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 7.4 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.

More markers nearby

• Jefferson — 5.3 mi
• Marshall — 5.5 mi
• Marshall Powder Mill — 5.7 mi
• Old Powder Mill Cemetery — 5.9 mi