First Baptist Church of Beaumont
Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. J.W.D. Creath and the Rev. J.H. Fant organized this church in 1872. Baptist and Methodist congregations joined in 1877 to erect a frame church building at the corner of Main and Fannin streets. For the belfry, the Baptists donated a bell originally used on one of Captain W.E. Rogers' Neches River steamboats. The Rev. H.C. Weymouth became the fellowship's first resident pastor in 1882. Membership doubled after a 10-day revival led by evangelist William E. Penn in 1885. The new members included Pattillo Higgins, later one of the chief promoters of the Spindletop drilling. In 1887 the congregation constructed its own red brick church at the corner of Pearl and Forsythe streets on property donated by George W. Carroll, Pattillo Higgins, and Dr. W.H. Smith. After the Spindletop oil boom of 1901, this church, led by the Rev. J.A. Smart, sponsored 4 missions in Beaumont and Gladys City. In 1903 the brick church building was replaced by a larger limestone structure, but it soon became too small for the growing fellowship. The present edifice was erected on this site in 1924-1925, during the pastorate of the Rev. J.H. Pace, who served the longest term here, 1924-1938. In recent years, the church's educational facilities have been enlarged. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1872 during Reconstruction, this Beaumont congregation grew from a shared frame church into its own red-brick sanctuary and, by the 1920s, the limestone edifice on this site. Its membership swelled after an 1885 revival that drew in Pattillo Higgins, who would go on to champion the Spindletop drilling that made Beaumont a boomtown. The church sponsored missions in the raw new oil districts as the town exploded after 1901.
Why it matters
The congregation's story is braided into the Spindletop oil boom that launched the modern American petroleum industry, showing how a church anchored a community through breakneck change.
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Related people
- · Pattillo Higgins
- · George W. Carroll
Related events
- · Spindletop oil boom
Themes & tags
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