Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, affectionately known as “The Rock,” and established in 1864, is the oldest African American church in Dallas County. The church was named for the mountain peak from which Moses viewed the promised land. Reverend Robert F. Butler, a White circuit preacher, and a few enslaved people gathered in June 1864 under an elm tree in the White Rock Settlement on Billie Wilburn’s Farm. The founders held church services despite their enslavement, including John Huffman, Dan Howard, Sam Fowler, William Phifer, Tobe Howard and Jack Saunders. After slavery was abolished, freedmen bought land, built homes and established churches and schools. Mount Pisgah’s membership grew and congregants traveled up to five miles to attend services. The congregation met under a brush arbor and by June 1888 voted to purchase land along the waters of White Rock Creek. The first building was a long, narrow frame structure. Picnics were held on the grounds and baptisms took place in various ponds, located near White Rock Union Graveyard, at present-day Coit at North Central Expressway, and at Sowell’s Farm at present-day Spring Valley at Montfort. As membership continued to grow, the church built a new structure on this site, which was completed in 1945 and constructed of rocks hauled by church members from Jacksboro. By the early 1980s, the congregation outgrew their location and purchased a church complex on Webb Chapel Road. Through partnerships with community and worldwide groups, Mount Pisgah has helped others by providing scholarships, services to homeless populations, school supplies, assistance to food banks and funding for a water well in Ghana. Located on South Sherman Street in Richardson, Mount Pisgah continues to grow while it supports and influences its community and lands abroad through its faith. (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Known as "The Rock," Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church traces its founding to June 1864, when a white circuit preacher and a group of enslaved people gathered under an elm tree on a Dallas County farm—making it the oldest African American church in the county. After emancipation, freedmen bought land, built homes, and grew the congregation, purchasing property along White Rock Creek by 1888 and later raising a rock building hauled by hand from Jacksboro. Now in Richardson, the church continues its outreach from scholarships to a water well in Ghana.
Why it matters
Born under slavery and sustained through freedom, Mount Pisgah embodies how the Black church became the foundational institution of African American community life in Texas and across the South.
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Related people
- · Robert F. Butler
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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