First Baptist Church of Lancaster
Lancaster, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
During the 1840s and 1850s, Lancaster Baptists met periodically in private homes. On Sept. 29, 1867, fourteen charter members gathered to organize the Missionary Baptist Church. They worshiped first in the Masonic Hall, a two-story frame building that also housed three other denominations and the community school. Early baptisms were held in Ten Mile Creek. In 1873 the congregation bought a lot at E. 2nd and State Street and erected the first church building in Lancaster, a structure shared for a time with the Methodists and Presbyterians. The bell that hung in the steeple of that frame edifice is now displayed in the church yard. The Ladies Aid Society, formed in 1877, helped purchase an adjacent lot for construction of the first parsonage in 1887. This fellowship became the First Baptist Church of Lancaster in 1902. A new church building was erected in 1902-03 on this property at E. 3rd and Henry Street, purchased from Lancaster Lodge No. 160, A. F. & A. M. The pulpit and stained glass windows were transferred from that sanctuary to the present structure, built in 1951-52. Other physical facilities were added as the First Baptist congregation expanded its membership and community services.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Lancaster's Baptists met in private homes through the 1840s and 1850s before fourteen charter members formally organized in 1867, worshiping first in a shared Masonic Hall and baptizing converts in Ten Mile Creek. In 1873 they built the town's first church building, its steeple bell now displayed in the churchyard. The congregation grew across successive buildings and a Ladies Aid Society that helped fund the first parsonage.
Why it matters
The church's early shared quarters and creek-side baptisms capture how frontier Texas communities pooled scarce resources to build lasting civic and religious institutions.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Lancaster
Lancaster, TX
Kentucky-born A. Bledsoe settled here in 1846 and, with the Rawlins family, laid out this town around 1852, naming it Lancaster after the Kentucky town his grandfather had founded. Stores, churches, a school, and mills soon clustered on the one-square-mile townsite, and during the Civil War a Confederate pistol factory operated here. The town weathered repeated fires and the rise and fall of Randolph College, living for a century as a cotton-market town whose fortunes rose and fell with the crop.
First United Methodist Church of Lancaster
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W. A. Strain Home
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This ornate frame Victorian was built in 1895–96 for W. A. and Minnie Strain, whose pioneer family had bought the Lancaster property back in 1846. Its fishscale shingling and elaborate porch trim were the work of noted Dallas architect James E. Flanders of the Flanders-Moad firm. The Strains' son later raised his own family of four daughters in the house, keeping it in the family across generations.
First Christian Church of Lancaster
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