HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

First Presbyterian Church

Giddings, Lee County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Founded 1876, with thirteen charter members, under the direction of Rev. H. B. Burr and Rev. R. H. Byers. Edifice designed and built in 1886 by the ruling elder, Frank Morris. Annex constructed in 1952. Oldest church building in Giddings in continuous use. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Founded in 1876 with thirteen charter members under the Rev. H. B. Burr and the Rev. R. H. Byers, this congregation built its sanctuary in 1886, designed and constructed by ruling elder Frank Morris. An annex followed in 1952. It remains the oldest church building in Giddings still in continuous use.

Why it matters

It marks the founding of enduring community institutions as central Texas towns took shape in the decades after the Civil War.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Rev. H. B. Burr
  • · Frank Morris

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

J. D. Giddings Lodge No. 280, A. F. & A. M.

Giddings, TX

Chartered by the Grand Lodge of Texas in 1865, this Masonic lodge began in the community of Evergreen and moved to Giddings in 1872 after the railroad bypassed its original home. For generations the lodge lent its hall to public schools, community groups, and government agencies, weaving itself into the civic fabric of the town. A new lodge hall rose on this site in 1969-70.

Lee County Courthouse

Giddings, TX

Completed in 1899, the Lee County Courthouse rose after fire destroyed the county's first courthouse in 1897. Designed by J. R. Gordon in the muscular Richardsonian Romanesque style—named for the influential Louisiana-born architect Henry Hobson Richardson—it echoes public buildings of its era with heavy stone and rounded arches. Its builders, a San Antonio firm, set it on the high ground dividing the Colorado and Brazos river basins, a commanding perch for the seat of county government.

Lee County

Giddings, TX

Straddling the Old San Antonio Road on land first surveyed for Moses and Stephen F. Austin's colony, Lee County became in 1854 the heart of Wendish settlement in America, when Pastor Johann Kilian led his Sorbian-speaking congregation from Central Europe to a new home here. Their school was the only one in the United States to teach in Wendish, a Slavic language that survives in the modern world chiefly here and in Australia. The county was organized in 1874 and named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, with Giddings as its seat.

First Baptist Church of Giddings

Giddings, TX

Founded in 1872, this Giddings congregation counted just sixteen members under pastor J. Budd the next year and raised its first building in 1881, west of the present site. Over its first century a series of long-serving pastors guided its growth to some 300 members. The marker records the steady work of a small-town church across four generations.