First Baptist Church of Buda
Buda, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In July 1882, the year after the founding of Du Pre, now Buda, M. Lawson, A. Teague and W. A. Hancock petitioned the San Marcos Baptist Association for the formation of this church. The first pastor was the Rev. D. A. Porter, ordained in the nearby Pioneer Baptist Church at Mountain City. Services were conducted in a schoolhouse and a Methodist chapel until the 1890s, when the first sanctuary was built. The church moved here in 1949, when the new stone building was completed. Known as the Buda Baptist Church from 1889, the congregation adopted the present name in 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In July 1882, just a year after the founding of the railroad town then called Du Pre, three local men petitioned to form this Baptist congregation. Its first services were held in a schoolhouse and a Methodist chapel until the church built its own sanctuary in the 1890s. The congregation, long known as the Buda Baptist Church, moved into a new stone building in 1949 and took its present name in 1967.
Why it matters
The church traces the growth of a small Central Texas railroad town, showing how frontier congregations often shared borrowed rooms before they could build sanctuaries of their own.
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Related people
- · D.A. Porter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Buda Christian Church
Buda, TX
Organized in 1893, the Buda Christian Church first shared the local Methodist building before raising its own sanctuary on this site in 1903. A storm leveled that structure in 1909, and the congregation rebuilt in 1912 in a modest frame design blending Italianate and classical revival touches. Membership faded after the 1940s and the congregation eventually disbanded, though the building found new life housing civic groups and, later, another church.
Buda
Buda, TX
Originally called Du Pre, this Hays County town was born in 1881 along the International and Great Northern Railroad after Cornelia A. Trimble donated the townsite land. The name "Buda," adopted late in the decade, has a murky origin — local legend ties it either to Budapest or to "viuda," the Spanish word for widow, honoring the women who cooked at a railroad hotel. In its heyday Buda boasted a theater, skating rink, newspaper, and two banks.
Buda United Methodist Church
Buda, TX
Established in 1880 under the pioneer circuit rider Rev. Thomas Garrett, this congregation was the first church in the new railroad town of DuPre, later renamed Buda. Its first sanctuary went up on this site in 1882, just as rail lines reached the fledgling community. Over the generations its members included many of the area's founding settlers and civic leaders.
Barton Cemetery
Buda, TX
This ground was once part of a Mexican land grant awarded to empresario Ben Milam in 1826. James U. Barton brought his family from Alabama in the 1850s and established a farm here, and the cemetery's first burial is believed to be his infant granddaughter, who died in 1873. Barton formally deeded 3.25 acres for the graveyard in 1881, and it still serves the Mountain City community today.