Forest Home Baptist Church
Kilgore, Rusk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This congregation was organized in 1889 by the Rev. J. R. Goode and eight charter members: Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Mercer; Mr. & Mrs. George Augustus Meadows; Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Johnson, Sr.; and Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Johnson, Jr. The first sanctuary was a one-room log structure with one door and no windows. It was replaced by a larger frame building which also served as a school for children from Rusk and Gregg counties. Additional facilities were built over the years to accommodate the growing congregation, which includes descendants of the charter members.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1889 by the Rev. J. R. Goode and eight charter members from four founding families, this congregation began in a windowless one-room log church with a single door. A larger frame building soon followed and doubled as a school for children from both Rusk and Gregg counties, and the church added facilities as it grew. Descendants of those charter members still worship in the congregation their forebears founded.
Why it matters
A log church that became a schoolhouse shows how frontier congregations carried the twin burdens of faith and education where no public institutions yet reached.
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Related people
- · Rev. J. R. Goode
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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