Pine Ridge Baptist Church
Sour Lake, Hardin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The founders of the Pine Ridge community came here to settle during the 1840s, soon after Texas was admitted to statehood. The Rev. David M. Jordan and his family moved to Pine Ridge probably during the late 1860s. A Baptist minister ordained in Alabama in 1852, Jordan had first come to Hardin County in 1858 and organized the Providence Baptist Church near the present town of Kountze. Rev. Jordan organized the Pine Ridge Baptist Church in 1874. Joining him as charter members were Mary, Susan T., George B., W. J., and Sultana L. Jordan; Jessie and Missouri Jordan Daniels; The Rev. J. W. "Billy" and Miley Jordan Teel; Mandy Shaw Cotton, Jane Teel, Thomas Laird, and Aletha Laird Herrington. Rev. Jordan donated land for a church and cemetery. During the early years, baptisms were held in Little Pine Island Bayou. Upon the death of the Rev. D. M. Jordan in 1906, his son-in-law, the Rev. J. W. Teel, became the church's second pastor. Over the years, the congregation has been served by many able pastors, and several ministers have been licensed to preach from the church's membership. With a history of service and leadership to the community, Pine Ridge Baptist Church continues to uphold the ideals and traditions of its founders.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers reached the Pine Ridge community of deep East Texas in the 1840s, just after Texas joined the Union, and around the late 1860s the Alabama-ordained Baptist minister David M. Jordan brought his family here. In 1874 Jordan organized Pine Ridge Baptist Church, donating land for a church and cemetery, and in the early years converts were baptized in Little Pine Island Bayou. After his death in 1906 his son-in-law carried on as the congregation's second pastor.
Why it matters
The church records the ordinary work of frontier faith — a single traveling preacher planting congregations across the piney woods — that knit scattered settler families into lasting communities.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · David M. Jordan
- · J. W. Teel
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jackson Family Cemetery
Sour Lake, TX
Stephen Jackson, a settler in Lorenzo de Zavala's colony, received a league of land here in 1835 and built a home amid palmetto thickets and sulphur springs whose mineral waters drew settlers seeking cures. A small community grew nearby, and by the 1850s Jackson held a stake in the spa that became Sour Lake. After his death in 1860, his widow Susan set aside four acres as a family cemetery, where generations of Jackson descendants and other members of the Sour Lake community have since been laid to rest.
Stephen Jackson
Sour Lake, TX
Born in South Carolina, Stephen Jackson joined Lorenzo de Zavala's colony in 1831, part of the wave of Anglo settlers who took Mexican land grants in Texas. He earned a farm, then a full league of land encompassing the future community of Sour Lake, and in 1836 marched with the Texas army in its war for independence. He and his wife Susan raised a family here and lie with their children in the cemetery near this spot.
David Choate Jr.
Lumberton, TX
Born in Louisiana in 1811, David Choate Jr. joined a company of Beaumont volunteers and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, earning land bounties that he settled along Pine Island Bayou. There in 1856 he founded Concord, a steamboat shipping point whose busy ferry linked Beaumont to points north and drew farm goods and lumber from three counties. At its peak Concord held 300 residents—but when railroads reached the region, the steamboats fell silent and the town was abandoned by 1880.
Former Townsite of Concord
Loeb, TX
Founded in 1858 as Benton, this was the first town in Hardin County, planted at a strategic river crossing on the route from Beaumont to points north. It grew rapidly into a busy steamboat port of some 300 people, its fortunes riding on the traffic of the waterways. When the railroads arrived in the 1880s, they bypassed the old port and drew commerce elsewhere, and Concord dwindled away. Today only the townsite remains to mark where a thriving river landing once stood.