Mt. Pisgah
Van Zandt County, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Mt. Pisgah community was founded by farming families who came to the area in the 1860s and 1870s from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church was established ca. 1870, and Wade H. Walters deeded property for the construction of the church building and a school in 1877. The school was established by 1883, and G.D. Staton deeded additional land to the church in 1892. Mt. Pisgah Cemetery was founded adjacent to the church and continues to serve citizens of the area. As with many small, rural communities, a great number of residents left the area to seek employment during World War II, greatly reducing the population of the community. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Farming families from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia settled the Mt. Pisgah area in the 1860s and 70s, and their first shared institution was Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, organized about 1870. In 1877 Wade H. Walters deeded land for a church building and a school, and a cemetery grew up beside the church to serve the neighborhood for generations. Like so many rural communities, Mt. Pisgah thinned out when residents left for wartime employment during World War II.
Why it matters
Mt. Pisgah traces the arc of a Deep South-settled Texas farm community, from the church-and-school core that defined it to the World War II labor migration that hollowed it out.
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Related people
- · Wade H. Walters
- · G. D. Staton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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