First Baptist Church of Copperas Cove
Copperas Cove, Coryell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized in 1885 by the Reverend J. F. Baker and thirteen charter members, this congregation first met in a community schoolhouse. The Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway Company provided a plot of land for one dollar on which the members built their first sanctuary in 1890. The second sanctuary, built in 1908 to serve the growing congregation, is still in existence and used for Sunday School classes. The churches has produced several missionaries, ministers, and full-time Christian service professionals as it continues to provide important ministries to the community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1885 by the Reverend J. F. Baker and thirteen charter members, this congregation first gathered in a community schoolhouse. The Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway sold the members a plot for a single dollar, and they raised their first sanctuary in 1890; a second, built in 1908, still survives as Sunday School space. Over the years the church sent out missionaries and ministers while anchoring the growing town of Copperas Cove.
Why it matters
It shows how a railroad's small gift of land could seed a lasting church at the heart of a Central Texas community.
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Related people
- · J. F. Baker
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church Building, 1908
Copperas Cove, TX
Designed by Waco architect Melton W. Scott, this lofty stone-and-brick sanctuary rose in 1908 for Copperas Cove's First Baptist congregation during the pastorate of the Rev. A. B. Jenkins. Its asymmetrical wooden towers and art-glass windows reflect the ambitious churchbuilding of small-town Texas in the early twentieth century. After 1965 it shifted from primary worship space to Sunday School and program use.
Mt. Hiram Lodge No. 595, A.F. & A.M.
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Chartered in 1884, Mt. Hiram Lodge No. 595 gathered the Masons of frontier-era Copperas Cove, first meeting in a two-story building it shared with the town's public school. In those early years its members joined a local company of Minutemen and worked to build up the area's economy. The lodge moved to quarters above a Main Street mercantile in 1894 and to its present home in 1970.
Boys Ranch of Copperas Cove
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Between 1934 and 1949, more than a hundred boys — orphans and children of broken homes and juvenile courts — found refuge at this ranch, founded by Roy and Viola Dawson as a sanctuary for the Great Depression's 'lost boys.' The boys worked a self-sufficient ranch with its own dairy, gardens, and grist mill while attending school and church, and the operation later drew Hollywood support through the Variety Club.
Oakalla
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The first settlers reached this rich farm and ranch country in the 1850s, and by 1881 the community of Oakalla boasted a doctor, a drugstore, a blacksmith, and a cotton gin. Schooling began privately and moved into a cooperative building whose second floor doubled as a classroom, while worship was held in the schoolhouse and open-air brush arbors until the Baptist congregation raised its own meetinghouse in 1908. The school consolidated with Lampasas in 1958, and its building carried on as a community center.