Ladonia Presbyterian Church Building
Ladonia, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Ladonia Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., originally organized in the mid-19th century, erected this structure between 1910 and 1912. The building contract was awarded to W. H. Markley of Commerce for $6,400. An excellent example of 20th century Mission Revival style adapted to an ecclesiastical mode, the structure exhibits fine detailing and proportions with a simplicity of form. The congregation was dissolved by 1976. The character defining central parapet was reconstructed in 1997. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Presbyterian congregation first organized in Ladonia in the mid-nineteenth century, and between 1910 and 1912 it raised this handsome brick sanctuary, awarding the $6,400 contract to builder W.H. Markley of Commerce. The design is an unusual example of Mission Revival style adapted to a church, prized for its fine detailing and simple, well-proportioned form. Though the congregation dissolved by 1976, the building endured, and its defining central parapet was rebuilt in 1997.
Why it matters
The church shows how national architectural fashions like Mission Revival reached small Texas towns, leaving landmarks that outlived the congregations that built them.
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Related people
- · W. H. Markley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bethel Lodge No. 134 A. F. & A. M.
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Bethel Lodge began under a dispensation in 1853 and was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Texas in 1854, with Wesley C. Walker as its first worshipful master. Its members were pioneer settlers, many drawn to the new state from the older South, who first met at the Rehobeth community before the lodge moved to Ladonia in the 1870s. After fire and several relocations, the group bought its meeting hall in 1912 and continued as a civic force, absorbing Yowell Lodge in 1961.
Ladonia Cemetery
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The chief burial ground of Ladonia grew from two sections—an I.O.O.F. (Odd Fellows) cemetery and a Presbyterian one—before their management merged around 1902. Among its earliest graves are an infant from 1866, the "Stranger's Tomb" of an unknown traveler who died in 1867, and Baptist pastor and Civil War veteran William Lovelace Foster. Over generations it gathered in Fannin County officials, early settlers, and veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars.
Ladonia
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Settled around 1840 and first called McCownville after early resident Frank McCown, this Fannin County community was platted with unusually wide streets by carpenter-merchant James H. Cole. Local legend says the name changed in 1857 to honor Ladonna Millsay, a singer traveling by wagon train from Tennessee, and by 1858 a post office made "Ladonia" official. The arrival of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in 1887 turned it into a booming cotton-marketing town of 2,000 before it slowly declined in the 20th century.
First Baptist Church of Ladonia
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The Baptists of Ladonia trace their beginnings to 1859, when the Rev. Robert Cooke Buckner rode monthly from Paris to preach, and the congregation formally organized in January 1860. In its early years worshipers sat on split logs in a shared church-and-schoolhouse before raising their first building in 1877. The church became a hub of regional Baptist life, even hosting an 1867 convention thinned by a yellow fever outbreak, and its women's missionary groups were active as early as 1869.