First Baptist Church of Giddings
Giddings, Lee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded 1872. In 1873 had 16 members, with J. Budd as pastor. First building (1881) was west of present site. Pastors serving 10 to 15 years in church's century of growth to 300 members: Q. T. Simpson, W. W. Burr, Peter DeYoung, H. L. McLerran, J. W. Tripp. Present pastor is evangelist John Karcher. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1872, this Giddings congregation counted just sixteen members under pastor J. Budd the next year and raised its first building in 1881, west of the present site. Over its first century a series of long-serving pastors guided its growth to some 300 members. The marker records the steady work of a small-town church across four generations.
Why it matters
The founding of a church often marked a raw railroad town's passage into a settled community, and its membership rolls chart the growth of frontier Texas.
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Related people
- · J. Budd
- · John Karcher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lee County
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Straddling the Old San Antonio Road on land first surveyed for Moses and Stephen F. Austin's colony, Lee County became in 1854 the heart of Wendish settlement in America, when Pastor Johann Kilian led his Sorbian-speaking congregation from Central Europe to a new home here. Their school was the only one in the United States to teach in Wendish, a Slavic language that survives in the modern world chiefly here and in Australia. The county was organized in 1874 and named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, with Giddings as its seat.
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