Original Site of St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church
Lufkin, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first Episcopal service in Lufkin was held in 1893 by the Rev. George L. Crocket for the W. G. Garron and R. B. Shearer families. St. Mary's Mission was established in 1895 by the Rev. C. M. Beckwith, but the congregation did not have a permanent church building until 1906 when the structure on this site was erected and the name St. Cyprian's was adopted. The building was bricked in 1929 and later gutted by fire, after which the congregation moved to another location. St. Cyprian's original sanctuary stands today as Lufkin's oldest existing church building. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Episcopal presence in Lufkin began in 1893 with services led by the Rev. George L. Crocket, growing from a small mission into a permanent congregation that built this sanctuary in 1906. Adopting the name St. Cyprian's, the church later bricked its walls and, after a fire and relocation, left the original building standing as the oldest surviving church in Lufkin.
Why it matters
As East Texas timber towns matured, congregations like St. Cyprian's turned raw settlements into communities with lasting institutions.
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Related people
- · George L. Crocket
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Angelina County
Lufkin, TX
Carved from Nacogdoches County in 1846, Angelina County takes its name from the river winding through the region. In its early decades the county seat shifted restlessly from Marion to Jonesville to Homer before settling at Lufkin in 1890. The town of Homer even changed its own name to Angelina for a time, a reminder of how fluid frontier geography could be.
Whitehouse Cemetery
Whitehouse, TX
Whitehouse Cemetery is said to take its name from a whitewashed 19th-century Cole family home that stood out among the area's log houses, along a road that once linked the old county seats of Homer and Crockett. Its oldest marked grave dates to 1893, though earlier burials exist, and its tombstones carry the names of settlers who helped shape Lufkin and Angelina County. A cemetery association formed in 1934 to tend the grounds, long kept in the traditional "scraped-earth" manner.
Walker Cemetery
Lufkin, TX
The Red Land community, named for the red soil ridge at its heart, took shape after Thomas R. Walker arrived from North Carolina in 1846 and married Emily Briscoe. Walker served as county sheriff and judge and belonged to the local Masonic lodge, and when he died in 1877 he was buried in this graveyard that predated his purchase of the surrounding land. Deeds from his widow and neighbor J. W. Chamblee in 1892 enlarged the site into a community cemetery that still bears his name.
Redland Baptist Church
Lufkin vicinity, TX
The roots of Redland Baptist Church reach back to 1859, when the Angelina County community organized Liberty Baptist Church, reconstituted in 1895 under its present name. For decades the faithful gathered in a local schoolhouse until they raised their first sanctuary in 1924, followed by new buildings in 1939, 1960, and 1976 as membership grew. The congregation called its first full-time pastor in 1942.