First Christian Church of Rockdale
Rockdale, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized in 1887, this church was first served by the Rev. A. J. Bush, Sr. (1846-1920), a Civil War veteran who was instrumental in establishing Christian churches in many areas of the state. Previous buildings on this site were replaced in 1958 by a new brick sanctuary, with volunteers from the congregation providing most of the labor. The church has been involved in local and foreign missionary activities for many years. Offering assistance to people in need, the First Christian Church continues to be an important part of the Rockdale community. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1887, this Rockdale congregation was first led by the Rev. A. J. Bush, Sr., a Civil War veteran who helped plant Christian churches across Texas. Generations of members worshiped on this site, raising a new brick sanctuary largely with their own hands in 1958. The church's long record of local and foreign mission work made it a fixture of the Rockdale community.
Why it matters
The story captures how veterans and volunteers rebuilt civic and spiritual life in the small towns of post-Reconstruction Texas.
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Related people
- · Rev. A. J. Bush, Sr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Rockdale
Rockdale, TX
Rockdale grew up around a railroad camp in 1873, and the following year the Rev. B. B. Baxter gathered 18 charter members into a Baptist congregation that first met in a room above a dry-goods store. A simple sanctuary went up in 1881, replaced by a new building in 1919 as the church grew with the town. A Latin American mission begun in the 1950s later became its own Southern Baptist congregation.
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Rockdale, TX
Rockdale's first Episcopal services were held in a store in 1875, shared with other faiths, before Bishop Alexander Gregg organized St. Thomas Mission in 1876. The congregation bought this site in 1879 with a gift from the Solon Joynes family and raised a frame chapel in 1880, still preserved within the later church. A 1920s rector hand-carved the altar, and the growing parish added a hall and expanded the building in 1952.
Jewish Cemetery
Rockdale, TX
When the railroad reached Rockdale in 1874, Jewish merchants were among its earliest residents, including the Lowenstein brothers, who sold goods from a tent before the tracks even arrived. By 1879 some 100 Jewish residents supported an active B'nai B'rith lodge, and in 1877 the Hebrew Benevolent Association established this dedicated burial ground. Its graves—among them a Confederate veteran and victims of an 1888 hotel fire—chronicle a community whose last burial came in 1939.
Murray Cemetery
Rockdale, TX
First known as Pleasant Grove Cemetery, this Milam County burial ground shared its site with the community's school and church, its earliest marked grave dating to 1856. It took its lasting name from Madison Murray, a Civil War veteran who moved from Mississippi in the late 1860s, became a community leader, and ran the old schoolhouse as a private academy. As settlements rose and faded, the cemetery went on serving the Pleasant Grove, Bushdale, and Bethlehem communities, cared for by an association organized in 2004.