First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells
Mineral Wells, Palo Pinto County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells, organized in 1882, grew out of an early revival. William Evander Penn, known as the “Texas Evangelist,” conducted worship services in Palo Pinto County in 1882, and with 54 charter members he established the Mineral Wells Church. It would go on to host additional noted evangelists such as Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, Hyman Appleman, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith, and Texans J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett. The Rev. George Webb Slaughter, an early pastor of the church, was also instrumental in its organization. Ordained as a pastor in 1848, Slaughter had earlier served as a courier for Gen. Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution. The congregation first held services in a local schoolhouse before moving into a former Presbyterian church building in 1883. In 1900, members constructed a new church building, which served until 1920, when they built another sanctuary on the same site. In 1967, the congregation built its third house of worship here. Over the years, the First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells has been particularly active in missions and in community outreach. Members have established several mission churches, including East Side Baptist Church (now Calvary Baptist Church) in 1909, Lawn Terrace Baptist Church in 1947 and Bautista Mexicana (now Templo Bautista) in 1959. The congregation also co-sponsored a Cambodian mission at nearby Fort Wolters. Today, as a community and mission-minded institution, the First Baptist Church continues to be a vital part of Mineral Wells. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born out of an 1882 revival led by traveling preacher William Evander Penn, the 'Texas Evangelist,' the First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells gathered 54 charter members in a booming spa town. Over the decades its pulpit drew famous evangelists like Billy Sunday and 'Gypsy' Smith, and its members planted mission churches across the community. Early pastor George Webb Slaughter had once carried dispatches for Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution.
Why it matters
The congregation reflects how frontier revivalism and community-building churches knit together the fast-growing towns of late-19th-century Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Mineral Wells was a town on the rise, drawing visitors to the reputed healing waters that gave the place its name. Like many booming Texas towns of the Reconstruction and Gilded Age era, it grew quickly, and growing towns needed institutions to hold their new communities together. Among the first and most enduring of these was the church.
This was also the great age of Texas revivalism, when traveling evangelists carried camp-meeting fervor from town to town and turned a week of preaching into the seed of a permanent congregation. The First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells was born from exactly that spark — an 1882 revival that gathered scattered believers into a body with a name and a purpose.
Across Palo Pinto County and the wider frontier, churches did more than hold services. They organized schools, missions, and mutual aid, and they gave fast-changing towns a moral and social center. This congregation's long life reflects that founding role.
People & events
The church's beginnings trace to William Evander Penn, remembered as the 'Texas Evangelist,' who preached in Palo Pinto County in 1882. Out of his revival, fifty-four charter members came together to organize the Mineral Wells congregation — a substantial founding body for a young town.
Working alongside that founding was the Rev. George Webb Slaughter, an early pastor whose own life reached back into the making of Texas itself. Ordained as a pastor in 1848, Slaughter had, years before, carried dispatches as a courier for Gen. Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution — a thread connecting this pulpit to the state's fight for independence. His hand in organizing the church gave it a founder who had lived Texas history before he preached it.
Over the decades the congregation's pulpit became a stop for some of the most celebrated evangelists of the age, among them Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, Hyman Appleman, and Rodney 'Gypsy' Smith, along with noted Texans J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett. The congregation moved through a series of homes — a schoolhouse, then a former Presbyterian building in 1883, new sanctuaries in 1900 and 1920, and a third house of worship on this site in 1967. Along the way its members planted mission churches, including the congregation that became Calvary Baptist in 1909, Lawn Terrace Baptist in 1947, and the Spanish-language congregation now known as Templo Bautista in 1959, and co-sponsored a Cambodian mission at nearby Fort Wolters.
Its place in the American story
The story of this church is, in miniature, the story of how faith helped settle the American West. Across the growing towns of late-nineteenth-century Texas, revival preaching and community-minded congregations knit strangers into neighbors and gave raw settlements the institutions of a lasting society.
The famous names that filled its pulpit connect this local church to a national religious movement. Figures like Billy Sunday and 'Gypsy' Smith drew crowds across the country, and their visits placed a Texas spa town on the map of American revivalism — evidence of how a nationwide current of faith touched even modest communities.
The congregation's steady work in missions and outreach — planting new churches, welcoming Spanish-speaking and Cambodian worshippers — mirrors a larger American pattern in which local churches became engines of community-building, reaching outward as their towns and the country around them grew more varied.
If you visit
The building you'll see dates to 1967, the third house of worship the congregation has raised on this ground. Stand here and picture the earlier chapters layered beneath it: the schoolhouse where the first services were held, the borrowed Presbyterian building of 1883, and the sanctuaries of 1900 and 1920 that rose on this same spot.
Let Mineral Wells itself set the scene. This was a spa town, its fortunes tied to famous waters, and the church grew up amid the bustle of visitors and new arrivals. Knowing that helps you feel why a congregation of fifty-four charter members mattered so much to a place still finding its footing.
A visit pairs naturally with the story of Mineral Wells' heyday, and the church's deep roots make it a thoughtful stop on a Palo Pinto County road trip. Take a moment to consider the long reach of its history — from a courier who once rode for Sam Houston to the mission churches its members planted across the community.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Evander Penn
- · George Webb Slaughter
- · Billy Sunday
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mineral Wells
Mineral Wells, TX
Mineral Wells was, as its marker says, 'a town built on water.' Founded in 1877 by settler J. A. Lynch, who claimed a near-miraculous recovery from rheumatism after drinking the foul-tasting well water, it boomed as hundreds flocked to 'take the waters.' Its 'Crazy Water' slogan sprang from a reputed cure at the 'crazy woman well,' and for years the town reigned as Texas' leading health spa—its curative reputation resting largely on dissolved mineral salts.
Elmwood Cemetery
Mineral Wells, TX
When Mineral Wells needed a proper burial ground, landowners donated acreage to the city in 1883, and the graves from an earlier spot known as The Cove were carefully relocated here the next year. Among those laid to rest are the town's founder, James A. Lynch, his wife Arminda, and a generation of pioneer citizens who built the young West Texas town. First simply the City Cemetery, it took the softer name Elmwood after the ladies of the civic league planted elm trees across the grounds in 1913.
Sam Savage, Captive of the Comanches
Mineral Wells, TX
In March 1866, five-year-old Sam Savage survived a Comanche raid on his father's Parker County farm that killed his father Bolin and his uncle James; Sam, his brother, and a cousin were carried off into captivity. After a posse failed to overtake the raiders, trader John Fields located the children that November and ransomed them for $414 at Fort Arbuckle. Sam went on to become a rancher, farmer, and champion fiddler, living to 90 and often recounting the months he spent learning the Comanche language and the bow before his return.
Hittson Cemetery
Palo Pinto, TX
This burial ground began with the family of Jesse Hittson, a Virginia-born pioneer who came to the area in 1855 and started raising cattle at an important early Brazos River crossing that became known as Hittson Bend. Hittson helped organize Palo Pinto County in 1857, and his is the oldest marked grave here. Five generations of the family rest at this site, including relatives who rose to prominence in the cattle industry and the region's development.