Cliff Temple Baptist Church
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the early spring of 1898, twenty-six members of the First Baptist Church of Oak Cliff left the church to form the Oak Cliff Baptist Church to remain with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Walter B. Hillsman led the new congregation until he returned to finish his studies at Baylor University in the fall of 1898. The congregation then chose the Rev. Joe W. English as its next pastor. Pastor English led the church for more than two years and guided the construction of the congregation's first chapel at Jefferson and Lancaster streets in Oak Cliff. The church had three more pastors from 1901 until 1904 when Pastor English returned. During his second tenure he helped with the building of a second church in 1908 and led the congregation to change its name to Memorial Baptist Church. In 1912, under the guidance of Dr. J. B. Gambrell and Dr. George W. Truett, members of First Baptist Church of Oak Cliff and Memorial Baptist Church joined to form a new congregation. The unified church became the Central Baptist Church of Oak Cliff and was led by Dr. W. A. Hewitt until 1918. In 1918 Dr. Wallace Bassett was called as pastor and remained for 48 years until his retirement in 1966 at the age of 81. During his tenure he led the church to change its name to Cliff Temple Baptist Church, oversaw the church's growth to 5,000 members and served in many denominational leadership roles with Baylor University, the Southern Baptist Annuity Board and the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Under Dr. Bassett's leadership and that of his successors the church laid a strong foundation for ministry and social work in Dallas' inner city. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1898, twenty-six members left the First Baptist Church of Oak Cliff to form a new congregation loyal to the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Through a series of pastors, mergers, and name changes, it became Central Baptist Church of Oak Cliff by 1912, then Cliff Temple Baptist under Dr. Wallace Bassett, who led it for 48 remarkable years. Under Bassett the church grew to 5,000 members and built a strong tradition of ministry and social work in Dallas's inner city.
Why it matters
The church reflects the growth of Baptist life in early-20th-century Dallas and the long-serving pastors who anchored urban congregations.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Wallace Bassett
- · Joe W. English
- · J. B. Gambrell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
W. H. Adamson High School
Dallas, TX
The story of W.H. Adamson High School reaches back to 1892, when the newly incorporated town of Oak Cliff laid the cornerstone of its Central School under the Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas. Overcrowding pushed the community to build a state-of-the-art high school in 1915, later renamed for beloved principal and superintendent W.H. Adamson, the "Grand Old Man of Oak Cliff," after his death in 1935. New Deal programs added murals and wings in the 1930s, and the school remains the oldest continuously operating high school in the Dallas Independent School District.
Sunset High School
Dallas, TX
Opened in 1925 to serve Dallas's Oak Cliff, Sunset High School rose from the drafting tables of noted Texas architects in a district that gave the school its name. Built for two thousand students, it grew across the century with New Deal-era library murals of Texas settlement, championship teams, and a celebrated orchestra and band. Plaques near its entry honor students and faculty lost in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Dallas, TX
In 1873, recently freed people in Dallas's Freedman's Town gathered under a brush arbor with Methodist ministers to organize the area's first African American Methodist Episcopal church, with a sanctuary that doubled as a school for Black children. The congregation helped train ministers and even hosted the first classes of the college that became Huston-Tillotson University. Its brick sanctuary, designed after a plan by pioneering Black architect William Sidney Pittman, took 26 years to build—reportedly in five shades of brick brought by parishioners as offerings—and the church endured as a spiritual and political anchor even as highways demolished the surrounding neighborhoods.
Sons of Hermann in Dallas
Dallas, TX
Founded in New York in 1840 to preserve German traditions and ease immigrants' entry into American life, the Sons of Hermann established a Texas Grand Lodge in San Antonio in 1890. Dallas lodges soon joined, running German-language schooling for children from 1893 and pressing the State Fair to add a German day. By the 1920s the order was among the largest fraternal groups in the nation, and its Elm Street hall endured as a dance hall, bowling alley, and gathering place.