Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church and School
Dies, Tyler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church was formed by African American residents of the Dies community during the late 1800s. The church was originally located adjacent to the Old Pine Grove Cemetery, approximately 1.5 mi. north of this site. In 1912, as the community shifted south along the road towards nearby Woodville, Frank Herring donated a half acre for the relocation of the church. Unfortunately, a severe storm destroyed the church structure during the 1920s, and the congregation again chose to relocate. In 1928, Reverend Henry and Mrs. Vicey Frazier donated property at this site for a new church home, and a new building was soon erected. Pine Grove School was founded as a community outreach project of Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church. No formal school building was erected for African American children of the Woodville area until the 1930s, so classes for Dies community children in grades one through six were held at the church beginning as early as 1889. The school served the community for sixty years, with an average of thirty-eight students enrolled for each term; the school was closed after the 1948-49 school year. As originally constructed, Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church’s third building included a simple sanctuary and pulpit area. Additions to the building during the 1950s included a choir stand, pastor’s study, and a bell tower and foyer. At that time, a cast iron bell salvaged from the church’s second structure was placed in the bell tower. The exterior features a central tower, drop siding, exposed rafter ends and a metal gable roof.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Formed by African American residents of the Dies community in the late 1800s, Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church weathered storms and relocations before settling on land donated in 1928. Because no public school was built for Black children in the Woodville area until the 1930s, the congregation ran its own school inside the church from as early as 1889, teaching grades one through six for six decades. The modest sanctuary, later graced with a bell salvaged from an earlier building, served as both spiritual and educational heart of the community.
Why it matters
It stands for the way rural Black churches doubled as schools, filling the gap left by a segregated system that long denied African American children a place to learn.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Frank Herring
- · Henry Frazier
- · Vicey Frazier
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Henry T. Scott School
Woodville, TX
Woodville's African American families long educated their children in churches and Masonic halls until educator Henry T. Scott, a Prairie View graduate, arrived as a teacher in 1910 and led the drive for a proper public school. The six-room school named for him opened on Elm Street in 1934, and under principal John K. Canada it grew from fewer than 100 students to more than 500, prompting a new campus in 1961. The school closed in the late 1960s with integration, and its main building burned in 1980, but an alumni association keeps its memory alive.
Site of J.H. Rowe School
Jasper, TX
Formal public schooling for African American students near Jasper began in 1875 at Cold Springs and moved to a Jasper campus in 1924, the same year James Hoff Rowe arrived as administrator. A graduate of Prairie View and Hampton Institute who had served as a dean at Prairie View, Rowe led the school to expanding scope and stature until his death in 1943. Renamed in his honor, the school served the community until integration closed it in 1968.
Education in Livingston
Livingston, TX
Education took root in Livingston from the town's 1840s founding, when Moses Choate's land donation included a site for a school and the Masonic lodge financed a free academy in 1849. A graded school followed in 1888, growing into Livingston High School, whose first class graduated in 1908. The story also traces the town's separate Black schools—including Dunbar High—through the Freedom of Choice program that began integration in 1965 and full unification by 1968.
Dunbar High School
Livingston, TX
Formal education for Livingston's African American children began in a West Street building in the late 1800s, in a segregated system so under-resourced that a former white schoolhouse was once rolled across town on logs by mule teams to serve Black students. In 1936 the community opened Dunbar High School—named for poet Paul Laurence Dunbar—the largest African American school in Polk County, with twelve grades and vocational training. Its Leopards won state football titles in 1953, 1954, and 1958, until the Freedom of Choice integration program led to Dunbar's closing in 1968; residents later saved the campus for continued public use.