First Baptist Church of Plainview
Plainview, Hale County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized on November 23, 1890, Plainview Baptist Church began with eleven charter members. The new congregation called the Rev. I.B. Kimbrough as pastor, and they soon erected their first church building at the intersection of Austin and Fourth streets. The growth of the church closely paralleled that of the city, which grew considerably after a branch of the Santa Fe Railroad was built through town in 1907 and the area's first irrigation well was dug. In a 1911 state charter the church was named First Missionary Baptist Church of Plainview. Programs for local church members were expanded, and the congregation actively supported domestic and foreign missionary activities. Continued growth led to the construction of this building in 1927, and the name was changed once again in 1929 to First Baptist Church of Plainview. This Classical Revival sanctuary features two entry porticos, a cast stone cornice, and classical pediment. Continued growth over the years led to the acquisition of adjacent property and the construction of additional church facilities, including the Memorial Educational Building in 1950. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1890 with just eleven charter members, this West Texas congregation grew in lockstep with the town around it. When the Santa Fe Railroad reached Plainview in 1907 and the first irrigation well tapped the water beneath the plains, both church and community boomed. The congregation raised its Classical Revival sanctuary in 1927, its twin porticos and cast-stone cornice a sign of hard-won permanence on the High Plains.
Why it matters
The church's fortunes trace the arrival of the railroad and irrigated agriculture that transformed the Texas Panhandle from open range into settled farmland.
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Related people
- ¡ I.B. Kimbrough
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Santa Fe Railroad in Plainview
Plainview, TX
Operating in the Panhandle since 1886, the Santa Fe Railroad planned around 1900 to push into the rich farmland of the South Plains. Plainview's leaders raised $75,000 to court a connection, and on December 31, 1906, the first train arrived to end the town's isolation. Land agents soon brought trainloads of prospective settlers, and a courthouse, schools, an opera house, and Wayland's new institute rose in the boom that followed.
W. J. "Jeff" Williams
Plainview, TX
Largely self-taught, Jeff Williams reached Hale County in 1896 and took up surveying in 1902, later working on the 1909 resurvey of the vast XIT Ranch. He served as county surveyor in both Potter and Hale counties across more than half a century, dividing ranch lands, plotting roads and townsites, and settling boundary disputes. His work helped open the South Plains of Texas to settlement.
Liberty Community and Finney Switch
Plainview, TX
In 1887 the Leach brothers homesteaded here after immigrating from Liberty, Kentucky, building sod houses and a windmill and naming their settlement "Liberty" for their old home. A schoolhouse rose by 1892, and when the Santa Fe placed a switch on William Finney's land in 1906, a second hamlet called "Finney Switch" took shape nearby. Irrigation, dairy farming and small businesses followed, but school consolidation in 1948 and changing agriculture drained away the population.
Prairieview Community
Plainview, TX
The Prairieview community grew from a scattering of late-19th-century farms and ranches, its first school opened by Miss Alice Rosser in a brush arbor at Mapes in 1889. A one-room building on land bought from W.G. Williams soon doubled as school, church, and gathering place, and in 1892 the settlement took the name Prairieview; the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1906 finally connected its farmers and ranchers to wider markets.