Central Baptist Church
Groves, Jefferson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On October 14, 1912, fifteen members of Port Arthur's First Baptist Church, including Rev. J. Warren Bates, left and organized Central Baptist Church. Rev. Bates directed the organizational meeting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Singleton. On December 11, 1912, the congregation purchased land on Procter Street and constructed a wood frame church. in March 1915, that church building was moved to a new home at 6th Street and St. Augustine Avenue, and services were held there until 1924. From 1924 until 1976, the church was located at 9th Street and DeQueen Bouelvard, meeting first in a frame building and then in a brick sanctuary. In 1973, Central Baptist Church purchased acreage on Highway 73 and 46th Street and completed a new worship complex there in 1976. In 1925, Central Baptist Church was the first church in the Southeast Texas Baptist Association to have a Vacation Bible School. Radio broadcasts of evening services began in 1962 under Rev. Carl Duck and in 1971 under Rev. Dale Kirkhuff the morning service was televised. A child day care center began in 1977 and the Accelerated Christian Edcuation school begain in late 1980, but these two programs were later discontinued. The educational and administrative buildings were completed in May 1983. The church conducts evening services for the residents of Cypress Glen East Nursing Home. The church joined other local churches in sponsoring the English as a Second Language program. During Hurricanes Rita and Ike, the church opened its facilities to national and international volunteers who came to help with recovery efforts. For more than a century, Central Baptist Church has reached out through activities, charity and prayer. (2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Central Baptist Church was organized in 1912 when fifteen members left Port Arthur's First Baptist Church, meeting first in the Singleton home and soon building a wood-frame church. Over the following century it moved and grew through the Gulf Coast boom region, pioneering the area's first Vacation Bible School in 1925, broadcasting services on radio and television, and opening its doors to volunteers after Hurricanes Rita and Ike.
Why it matters
Its long reach through schooling, broadcasting, and disaster relief shows how a Gulf Coast congregation became a hub of community life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years after 1900, the upper Gulf Coast of Texas was booming. The discovery of oil in the region drew workers and their families to fast-growing towns like Port Arthur, and with them came the churning energy of a young, expanding community. New arrivals needed not just jobs and housing but places to gather, worship, and put down roots.
Churches multiplied to meet that need, and they did not always grow by staying together. Congregations split and budded off as neighborhoods filled and members sought a home closer to their own part of town. This was ordinary, healthy growth — the sign of a region gaining population faster than any single institution could hold.
Against that backdrop, in the autumn of 1912, a small group in Port Arthur set out to found a new congregation of their own.
People & events
On October 14, 1912, fifteen members of Port Arthur's First Baptist Church, including Rev. J. Warren Bates, left to organize Central Baptist Church. The organizational meeting was held in the home of Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Singleton — a reminder that many enduring institutions begin around someone's kitchen table. Within weeks the congregation had purchased land on Procter Street and raised a simple wood-frame church.
What followed was a century of restless growth, told through addresses. The building was moved in 1915, the congregation relocated again in 1924, worshipped in a frame building and then a brick sanctuary, and finally completed a new worship complex in 1976. Each move is a small monument to a congregation that kept outgrowing its walls.
Along the way the church became a place of firsts and outreach. In 1925 it held the first Vacation Bible School in its regional Baptist association. It carried its services beyond its walls — onto the radio in 1962 and onto television in 1971. And it turned toward the vulnerable and the newly arrived, holding services at a local nursing home and joining other churches to sponsor English as a Second Language classes. When Hurricanes Rita and Ike battered the Gulf Coast, the church opened its doors to the volunteers who came from across the country and beyond to help the region recover.
Its place in the American story
Central Baptist's long story mirrors the way faith communities have functioned across small-town America — not merely as places of Sunday worship, but as engines of education, communication, and relief. Its 1925 Vacation Bible School reflects a nationwide movement to teach children through the summer; its embrace of radio and, later, television echoes how American churches seized new media to reach beyond the sanctuary.
The disaster-relief chapter is especially resonant. Hurricanes Rita and Ike were among the major storms to strike the Gulf Coast in the 2000s, and the recovery that followed drew volunteers from far away. A church that could house and feed those helpers became part of a distinctly American tradition: local congregations serving as the front line of community resilience when disaster strikes.
And the ESL program points to something larger still — the constant remaking of American communities by newcomers, and the role churches have played in helping immigrants find their footing. In these ways a single Gulf Coast congregation reflects patterns visible across the whole country.
If you visit
This is a working church with a modern worship complex, not a preserved historic building — so come for the story the marker tells rather than for antique architecture. The plaque compresses a century of moves and milestones into a few lines, and it rewards a slow read.
As you stand there, notice how much of the congregation's history is a history of addresses. Tracing that restless path — from a wood-frame church on Procter Street to the complex completed in 1976 — is a compact lesson in how a boomtown congregation grows.
Port Arthur and the neighboring Gulf Coast towns carry the layered story of oil, industry, immigration, and hurricanes, and a church like this sits at the crossroads of all of them. If you're exploring the region's community history, it's a grounded, human stop between the bigger industrial landmarks.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · J. Warren Bates
Themes & tags
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