First Baptist Church of Crowley
Crowley, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Originally a small congregation in a rural setting, this church has evolved through a continuous succession of expansions into a leading suburban church serving southwestern Tarrant County. The earliest record mentioning the church dates to 1896, the year of its establishment and admission into the Tarrant County Baptist Association. The Rev. G. W. Green served as pastor of the original 27-member congregation. In 1899 the church began services in a newly erected auditorium, built on a town lot on Tarrant Street purchased two years earlier. Expansion needs caused by steady growth in the Sunday School program were satisfied temporarily with the interior remodeling of an army barrack donated to the church in 1947 and the erection of a new sanctuary in 1951. The lack of room for additional facilities at its original Tarrant Street location resulted in the acquisition of this 9.3-acre site in 1974 and dedication of a new sanctuary four years later. The church undertook a much publicized relocation of its 2-story education building, constructed in 1966, from Tarrant Street to this location in 1980. In 1991 the congregation, which numbered more than one thousand members, celebrated its 95th Anniversary. (1992, 1998)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
First Baptist Church of Crowley began in 1896 as a 27-member rural congregation and grew, over nearly a century, into a thousand-member suburban church in southwestern Tarrant County. Its story is one of steady expansion — a 1899 auditorium, a donated 1947 army barrack pressed into service as Sunday school space, new sanctuaries in 1951 and 1978, and even the physical relocation of a two-story education building in 1980.
Why it matters
The church's growth mirrors the broader transformation of rural Texas farmland into booming Sun Belt suburbs across the 20th century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. G. W. Green
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Presbyterian Church of Crowley
Crowley, TX
This congregation began in the plainest frontier fashion — brush arbor meetings and a Union Sunday School in 1895 — before the Presbyterians broke away to form their own fellowship and raised a sanctuary by 1897. Served for years by circuit-riding ministers, it counted among its early pastors the Rev. L. C. Collier, who also led the nearby Red Oak Academy.
Site of Red Oak Academy
Burleson, TX
Founded in 1879 near what was then Brushy Mound, this early Texas college was re-established as Alta Vista College in 1885. In 1893 it passed to the Presbyterian church and was renamed Red Oak Academy, lending its name to the surrounding neighborhood of "Academy Hill." The school closed its doors in 1899.
Renfro-Clark House
Burleson, TX
When Henry C. Renfro gave land for the M.K.T. Railroad line, he won the right to name the new town for his friend Dr. Rufus Burleson, a pioneer Baptist preacher and longtime president of Baylor University. Renfro's widow and daughter built this house in 1894 as the first home in the town's Clark addition. It stands as a reminder that a single landowner's deal with a railroad could conjure a whole community into being.
Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary
Fort Worth, TX
Chartered in 1908 for graduate training in Christian ministry, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary moved from Waco to Fort Worth in 1910 onto a 200-acre campus given by the city's people, whose gift also raised Fort Worth Hall. Founding president B.H. Carroll and successors like L.R. Scarborough guided its early growth, and in 1925 control passed from the Baptist General Convention of Texas to the Southern Baptist Convention. It grew into one of the largest seminaries in the country.