First Christian Church of Carthage
Carthage, Panola County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Gospel meetings in the late 1880s brought together enough prospective members to organize the First Christian Church of Carthage. Hamilton Pollard deeded a lot to the congregation in 1890, and a building was completed the next year. When the fellowship did not have a minister, lay persons and visiting preachers conducted services. The area oil and gas boom of 1943 brought in many new members, and a new sanctuary was opened here in 1947. The fellowship is a strong force in the community and is active in local and foreign missions. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born out of gospel meetings in the late 1880s, the First Christian Church of Carthage received a lot from Hamilton Pollard in 1890 and completed its first building the next year, often relying on lay members and visiting preachers when it had no settled minister. The East Texas oil and gas boom of 1943 swelled its ranks and paid for a new sanctuary in 1947. The congregation's fortunes rose and fell with the resources beneath Panola County's soil.
Why it matters
The church's mid-century growth shows how the East Texas oil and gas boom reshaped not just the economy but the very communities and institutions of the region.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Hamilton Pollard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Panola Watchman
Carthage, TX
Tom M. Bowers printed the first issue of the Panola Watchman in Carthage on July 2, 1873, having earlier run the Carthage Banner before leaving to serve in the Confederate army. In its early years the paper was set by hand, its news drawn from other publications and readers' letters, and it later passed through a series of owners who were state representatives. Over the following century it modernized from linotype to offset printing.
Jim Reeves
Carthage, TX
Born in the tiny community of Galloway, James Travis Reeves chased a baseball career until an injury sent him to a radio microphone instead. From disc jockey he rose to the Grand Ole Opry and international stardom, his smooth baritone earning him the nickname "Gentleman Jim." His life was cut short in a 1964 plane crash, and the Country Music Hall of Fame enshrined him three years later.
Midyett Springs
De Berry, TX
Deep in the piney woods of East Texas, these mineral springs drew settlers before 1850 and blossomed in the 1880s into a bustling farm town and health resort called Breckenridge Springs. After Spencer Midyett's store landed a post office in 1887, the renamed community swelled with a cotton gin, sawmill, stores, a school, and a hotel and boarding house catering to visitors who believed the mineral waters could cure what ailed them. Like so many East Texas timber towns, Midyett faded once the forests were logged out after World War I, its post office closing in 1920 and its school folding into Carthage's by the 1940s.
DeBerry
DeBerry, TX
Settled around an 1850 sawmill and grist mill, this East Texas cotton community became a market and ginning center before oil arrived after 1900. It took its name from Col. Alfred W. DeBerry, a Confederate cavalry officer who served in the wartime Texas legislature and later, as secretary of state under Governor Richard Coke, helped return state government to local control after Reconstruction.