First Baptist Church of Aledo
Aledo, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First Baptist Church Of Aledo This congregation was organized on September 25, 1879. The first church building was located on land (2.5 mi. SE) donated by a Mr. Middleton, who asked that the structure be named Alma Hall in memory of his daughter. The hall was shared with a Masonic Lodge and a Methodist congregation. Elder Isaac McMurray served as pastor of the Alma Hall Church until 1884, when it merged with the Ebenezer Church. Soon after the consolidation, the congregation moved to the railroad town of Aledo. Here the members worshiped in the community schoolhouse until a sanctuary was completed at this site in 1891. In 1913 it was replaced by a larger structure, built under the supervision of Joe Hopkins and with the assistance of church members. Later additions to the site were made to meet the demands of the congregation's continued growth. For over a century the First Baptist Church of Aledo has been instrumental in the development of the surrounding area. Pastors here have included many prominent Baptist preachers, and church members have actively served as leaders of the community. The church's programs continue to reflect the ideals of its pioneer founders. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1879, this Baptist congregation first met in a building called Alma Hall, on land donated by a Mr. Middleton in memory of his daughter and shared with a Masonic lodge and Methodist worshipers. After merging with the Ebenezer Church in 1884, the congregation followed the railroad to the growing town of Aledo, worshiping in the schoolhouse until a sanctuary was finished in 1891 and a larger one in 1913. For more than a century it has helped shape the surrounding community.
Why it matters
The church's move to follow the railroad shows how rail lines redrew the map of settlement in late-19th-century Texas, pulling congregations and communities toward the new depot towns.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Isaac McMurray
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
City of Aledo
Aledo, TX
The country around Aledo passed from Comanche and Kiowa hunting grounds to farms and ranches after the U.S. Army built Fort Worth in 1849 and Parker County was organized in 1856. The town itself was born when the Texas and Pacific Railroad laid track in 1879, first called Parker Station and renamed in 1882 for a railroad official's Illinois hometown. Long a farm-and-mill trading center, it grew again in the mid-20th century as workers from Fort Worth's bomber plant sought small-town living, and it incorporated as a city in 1963.
Aledo United Methodist Church
Aledo, TX
This congregation traces its start to 1878, when Methodists acquired a share of a small frame hall in the settlement of Alma, considered the forerunner of Aledo. When the Texas & Pacific Railway crossed Parker County in 1879, the building was moved to the new town rising along the tracks, and the church grew through a century of expansions, mergers, and new sanctuaries. As the first congregation in town to own its own building, it became a cornerstone of Aledo's civic and spiritual life.
Annetta Cemetery
Aledo, TX
Community founder A. B. Fraser was a Confederate soldier who chose exile in Central America over swearing loyalty to the Union, and it was there his daughter Anneta was born in Honduras. Back in Texas by the 1870s, he built a store and freight station west of Fort Worth and named it for her; when the Texas and Pacific Railroad arrived in 1880 it adopted the name as Annetta. The cemetery that grew up here holds hundreds of graves — civic leaders, farmers, and, in a poignant testament to pioneer hardship, thirty-five infants buried between 1882 and 1910.
Fort Worth-Yuma Mail (Star Post Route No. 31454)
Fort Worth, TX
By the 1870s, frontier settlements beyond the reach of the railroads still needed their mail, so the Post Office Department began contracting private "Star Routes" to carry it. On August 15, 1878, Route No. 31454 opened between Fort Worth and Yuma, Arizona Territory, under contractor J. T. Chidester, its stagecoaches largely retracing the old Butterfield Overland Mail line of the 1850s. The route lasted only until 1881, when the southern transcontinental railroad made it obsolete.