First Baptist Church of San Saba
San Saba, San Saba County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Prior to the establishment of the town of San Saba, a group of citizens formed a Baptist congregation which met in homes three miles east on Simpson Creek. Formed in 1856, the congregation was served by missionary preacher T. Howard (1817-1882). The members agreed to move their church to town as soon as the site was determined. When the first San Saba Courthouse was completed in 1857, the Baptist congregation began meeting there, continuing until 1878, when they met in a small schoolhouse. In 1883, under the guidance of The Rev. McHenry Seal (1877-1957), a church building was erected at 307 E. Storey Street. A parsonage was added in 1899. Both structures were destroyed by fire in 1923. A building fund was started, and in 1924 the present site was acquired and a new church was begun. The basement construction was of marble donated by a local quarry, which closed due to financial troubles. The building was completed using red brick. A native stone parsonage was built in 1932. In 1947, an educational facility was added, using converted barracks purchased from Fort Hood. A new educational wing was built in 1973, and the sanctuary was remodeled in 1982. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A generation before the town of San Saba existed, settlers gathered as a Baptist congregation meeting in homes along Simpson Creek, formed in 1856 under a traveling missionary preacher. As the frontier community matured, the fellowship worshiped in the county courthouse and a schoolhouse before raising its own buildings, weathering a 1923 fire and rebuilding with local marble and brick. Its long life mirrors the growth of a central Texas town from raw frontier to settled community.
Why it matters
Congregations like this were often the first institutions on the Texas frontier, providing the social glue that turned scattered homesteads into towns.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
San Saba Church of Christ
San Saba, TX
When San Saba County was organized in 1856, the commissioners granted a block of land to each religious body, and the local Christian church traded for a site and raised a small frame building. Early worship depended on lay elders and traveling ministers, punctuated by the lively public religious debates popular in frontier San Saba. The national 1904 division within the Christian church led this congregation to become a Church of Christ, and it weathered the Depression, a 1957 split, and lean years to flourish again in the 1970s.
First Methodist Church
San Saba, TX
Organized in 1856 in country so rough the congregation reportedly armed its missionary with a revolver and a good horse, this Methodist church built its first frame sanctuary in 1882. The present building, raised between 1914 and 1919 of local San Saba marble, is said to be the only all-marble Methodist church in the United States. It stands as a monument both to faith and to the stone quarried from the surrounding hills.
Estep-Burleson Building
San Saba, TX
Elijah Estep, San Saba County's second tax assessor-collector, built this two-story building of locally quarried limestone facing the courthouse in the early 1870s, running a mercantile store nearby. Long mislabeled the "Burden Hotel," records show it was Estep's own construction on a lot he bought in 1871. It later served as attorney Leigh Burleson's law office and passed through other hands, narrowly escaping demolition in the 1990s before being donated and restored to its 1911 appearance.
The Texas Rangers and the San Saba Mob
San Saba, TX
Isolated from courts and railroads, San Saba County in the mid-1800s spawned vigilante "mobs" that first promised protection and then curdled into a secret terror society. By the 1880s the shadowy San Saba Mob — organized like a fraternal lodge, complete with secret signs and midnight meetings at places like Buzzards' Water Hole — was ambushing settlers, leaving victims marked by nine bullet holes. In 1896 the state sent in the Texas Rangers under Sgt. W. J. L. Sullivan and later Capt. Bill McDonald, who paired with District Attorney W. C. Linden to move trials out of the county and finally break the Mob's grip by 1900.