First Baptist Church Georgetown
Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the early years of Georgetown, Baptist preachers, including Reverend George W. Baines, conducted worship services in people’s homes. Because of the booming population, there was a need for the Baptists to have a place of worship. The First Baptist Church Georgetown was established on October 30, 1866, with thirteen members. The worshippers met in the Union building, a school that served as a church for several denominations on Sundays located at Seventh and Myrtle Streets. In 1879, Major W.E. Penn, a Southern lay evangelist, held a camp meeting at the “fair grounds” (now called San Gabriel Park) near Five Springs. Hundreds attended and were baptized, including many of the First Baptist Church. Also in 1879, a group of Baptist women formed the Ladies Aid Society to support foreign missions, education and Buckner’s orphanage. In 1917, the church congregation formed the Williamson County Baptist Association. In the 1880s, Mrs. Lizzie Glasscock Talbot donated land at Sixth and Church Streets for a church and parsonage. As membership grew, however, a larger facility was needed. In 1926, Mrs. Helen Boatner Glasscock donated land on Tenth and Main Streets and a new church was erected. The church relocated to this location on highway 29 in 1987. With more than 4,000 members, the congregation continues to support local organizations and churches. Through education, missions and outreach, the First Baptist Church Georgetown has been a committed source of faith in the community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Baptist worship in early Georgetown began in private homes before the First Baptist Church was formally organized in 1866 with thirteen members, meeting in a shared union building that served several denominations. Revival camp meetings at the fairgrounds near Five Springs drew hundreds in 1879, the same year women organized a Ladies Aid Society for missions, education, and an orphanage. Through successive moves and donated lands, the congregation grew into one of the region's largest.
Why it matters
The founding and steady growth of a frontier-town congregation traces how faith communities organized civic and charitable life as Central Texas settlements matured.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Georgetown in the years just after the Civil War was a young and fast-growing frontier town in Central Texas. The 1860s brought a rising tide of settlers, and with people came the need for the institutions that turn a settlement into a community — among the first of them, churches. In these early days, faith often had no building of its own; it lived in parlors and borrowed rooms.
This was Reconstruction-era Texas, a raw and hopeful time. A booming population meant new houses, new commerce, and new congregations forming almost as fast as families could arrive. Denominations frequently shared space, taking turns in whatever building the town could offer, and worship was a practical, improvised affair before it was a settled one.
Into that setting came the traveling Baptist preachers — men who rode a circuit, holding services wherever they were welcomed. Their work laid the groundwork for permanent congregations, and in Georgetown one of those congregations was about to put down roots that would hold for well over a century.
People & events
In Georgetown's earliest years, Baptist preachers — among them the Reverend George W. Baines — carried worship from home to home. As the town's population swelled, the need for a dedicated place of worship grew with it, and on October 30, 1866, the First Baptist Church of Georgetown was formally established with just thirteen members. They met in the Union building at Seventh and Myrtle Streets, a schoolhouse that doubled on Sundays as a church for several denominations.
The congregation grew through the great revival culture of the era. In 1879, Major W. E. Penn, a Southern lay evangelist, held a camp meeting at the fairgrounds near Five Springs — the land now known as San Gabriel Park — where hundreds attended and were baptized, First Baptist members among them. That same year, a group of the church's women organized the Ladies Aid Society to support foreign missions, education, and Buckner's orphanage, putting faith to work in tangible service.
The congregation's history is written partly in the generosity of its women and the land they gave. In the 1880s, Mrs. Lizzie Glasscock Talbot donated ground at Sixth and Church Streets for a church and parsonage; in 1926, Mrs. Helen Boatner Glasscock gave land at Tenth and Main for a new church as membership outgrew the old. In 1917 the church helped form the Williamson County Baptist Association, and in 1987 it moved to its present location on Highway 29. Today, with more than 4,000 members, it remains a steady presence in Georgetown.
Its place in the American story
The founding of this church — thirteen members meeting in a borrowed schoolroom in 1866 — is a small, clear example of a very large American pattern: how faith communities organized the civic and charitable life of a growing nation, one frontier town at a time. Before there were public agencies to care for orphans or fund schools, congregations and their auxiliary societies did much of that work.
The camp meeting near Five Springs connects Georgetown to the sweeping revival tradition that shaped religion across the American South and West. These open-air gatherings, drawing hundreds for days of preaching and baptism, were both spiritual events and social ones — mass occasions in a rural world that had few of them, and engines of church growth on the frontier.
And the Ladies Aid Society points to the outsized, often under-recognized role of women in building these institutions. Long before women could vote, church women organized to fund missions, support education, and care for orphans — the same practical, world-shaping benevolence that ran through countless American communities as they matured from raw settlements into settled towns.
If you visit
To trace this congregation is to trace Georgetown itself, because the church kept moving as the town grew — Seventh and Myrtle, then Sixth and Church, then Tenth and Main, and finally out to Highway 29. If you like reading a place through its layers, you can let this marker send you on a small tour of a Central Texas town's expansion, stop by stop.
Don't miss the tie to San Gabriel Park. What is now a green riverside space near Georgetown was, in 1879, the "fair grounds" near Five Springs where hundreds gathered for a camp meeting. Standing in the park with that in mind, you can almost hear the crowds — a reminder of how much history a familiar recreation spot can quietly hold.
For a road-tripper, this is a stop that pairs naturally with Georgetown's beautifully preserved courthouse square and its historic streets. Read the marker, then wander — the church's journey across town is really the story of the whole community putting down roots, and the walking makes that story yours.
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
- · George W. Baines
- · W. E. Penn
Themes & tags
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