Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church
Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This historic congregation began in November 1890 with a group of Christians holding services in a schoolhouse. Worship extended to prayer meetings held in various homes. Eventually the congregation purchased land at the corner of Pine and Prince Streets and established Evergreen Baptist Church with Rev. Dickerson called as the first pastor. In 1900, under Rev. Jack Rhone, the name was changed to Magnolia Baptist Church. Property for the current location was purchased in 1925 during the term of Rev. Jim Alford. Rev. Rhone served for a second term, during which the first sanctuary was completed. Rev. Ed Cannon, Rev. C. B. Baily, and Rev. D. C. Coney followed as pastors. Under Rev. Coney, a new education building was dedicated on December 4, 1965. As church membership continued to grow, a new sanctuary was completed and dedicated on September 6, 1981. The church’s name was changed to Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church on April 30, 1995. The current sanctuary was dedicated on May 15, 2011. Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church has supported missionary enterprises, home mission, Christian education and foreign missions. Through these efforts, the church has impacted its community, state, and nation, as well as reaching Haiti and Africa. The church supports local missions through its giving recovering addicts/others a changed environment, feeding the homeless, local nursing homes, prayer and family ministries. Since its inception, Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church of Beaumont has been a light and beacon for all. The church’s motto, based on 1 Corinthians 2:2, is “Jesus Christ only, always.”
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This congregation began in November 1890 with Christians worshiping in a schoolhouse and in members' homes, then bought land and organized Evergreen Baptist Church under its first pastor, Rev. Dickerson. Renamed Magnolia Baptist Church in 1900, it acquired its present location in 1925 and grew steadily across the 20th century, dedicating new sanctuaries in 1981 and 2011. It took the name Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church in 1995 and has supported missions from Beaumont to Haiti and Africa.
Why it matters
Magnolia's long life mirrors the enduring role of African American Baptist churches as centers of faith, education, and community service in Beaumont across more than a century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Magnolia's beginning in November 1890 places it in the generation of African American congregations that came of age a full quarter-century after emancipation. By then the first freedom had hardened into the constraints of the Jim Crow era, and for Black Southerners the church was often the one institution wholly their own — a place to worship, to learn, and to lead.
Fittingly, this congregation was born not in a sanctuary but in a schoolhouse, with worship spilling over into prayer meetings held in members' homes. The pairing of school and church was no accident of convenience; across the South, education and faith advanced together in Black communities, and the same rooms often served both.
Beaumont in these years was growing into a substantial Gulf Coast city, and its African American congregations grew with it. From that schoolhouse start, the members set about the patient work of buying land and building an institution meant to outlast them all.
People & events
The congregation's early history is a story of steady building and renaming as it found its identity. After worshiping in a schoolhouse and in homes, the members purchased land at the corner of Pine and Prince Streets and organized as Evergreen Baptist Church, calling Rev. Dickerson as their first pastor. In 1900, under Rev. Jack Rhone, they took a new name — Magnolia Baptist Church.
The milestones accumulated across the decades under a succession of dedicated pastors. Property for the present location was bought in 1925 during the term of Rev. Jim Alford. Rev. Rhone returned for a second term, during which the first sanctuary was completed — and Rev. Ed Cannon, Rev. C. B. Baily, and Rev. D. C. Coney each took up the work in turn. Under Rev. Coney, a new education building was dedicated in December 1965.
Growth kept demanding room. A new sanctuary was dedicated in September 1981, the name became Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church in 1995, and the current sanctuary was dedicated in May 2011. Through all of it the church has poured itself into service — supporting recovering addicts with a changed environment, feeding the homeless, and ministering to local nursing homes and families, all under the motto drawn from scripture, 'Jesus Christ only, always.'
Its place in the American story
Magnolia's long life illustrates the central role of the Black Baptist church in American history. These congregations were engines of community — the places where education, mutual aid, leadership, and worship all came together at a time when the wider society kept its doors closed to African Americans.
The congregation's reach is part of what makes it remarkable. From a single Beaumont neighborhood, its support for missions has extended across its state and nation and outward to Haiti and Africa. That impulse connects it to the broad missionary tradition of the National Baptist movement, in which even modest local churches saw themselves as part of a global work of faith.
Equally telling is the ministry closest to home: feeding the hungry, sitting with the elderly, offering the addicted a path to change. This is the social gospel lived out on a local scale, and it reflects how, across the country, the Black church has long been a first responder to human need in its own community.
If you visit
You are looking at the marker of a congregation that has been part of Beaumont's life since 1890 — more than a century of worship carried forward by generation after generation. Read the inscription as a timeline, and let the sheer number of dates and pastors' names impress on you how much devotion it takes to keep a church alive that long.
Trace the church's journey in your mind: from a schoolhouse, to the corner of Pine and Prince Streets as Evergreen, to its present home, with sanctuaries rising in 1981 and again in 2011. Each new building marks a moment when the congregation outgrew what it had and chose to build for the future rather than rest.
This is an active, working church, so let respect guide your visit. Sundays belong to the congregation, which makes a weekday stop the considerate time to read the marker and take in the setting. Standing here, remember that the same community also feeds the homeless and comforts the elderly nearby — proof that the history on this marker is still being written in acts of service today.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Rev. Dickerson
- · Rev. Jack Rhone
Themes & tags
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