Woods New Hope Baptist Church

The Handbook of Texas says C. F. Hull settled the site in the early 1850s and it was first called Hull's Store. A post office granted in 1854 renamed it Woods, for its first postmaster, Theodorick B. Wood, and the office closed in 1906. The Handbook also records a combined school and Methodist church built before 1858. By 1885 Woods had a district school, three churches, a steam sawmill, three general stores, two blacksmiths and an estimated 200 people. The reported population was 100 in 1910 and 30 in 1936.

What the plaque says

Woods New Hope Baptist Church Residents of the Woods community established a Baptist church in 1855. Members first met in a structure that was also used for worship by Methodists and as a schoolhouse. The congregation later constructed a building here, on property deeded by James Hooker; a storm destroyed the strucutre in 1917, and it was replaced in 1919. Since its early years, the church has assisted those in need. The congregation has also focused on education, and contributed to domestic and foreign missions. Today, Woods New Hope Baptist Church is one of the remaining vestiges of the once-thriving Woods community. It remians a spiritual leader for residents in Panola County. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 12 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.

More markers nearby

• Old Center Cemetery — 3.5 mi
• James Rowe — 3.5 mi
• Site of Town of Spivey, 1870s-1900 — 6.7 mi
• George Washington Green — 7.3 mi