Smithfield Baptist Church
North Richland Hills, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This church was organized by 12 charter members in 1895; the Rev. G.W. Green served as first Pastor. A sanctuary was built here in 1902 on town lots donated by G.W. Gunter. The church supported area missions and organized a Youth Union, Sunday School, and Woman's Missionary Union. The congregation established Shady Grove Baptist Church in 1954. The church was renamed First Baptist Church of Smithfield in 1958. A new sanctuary was built in 1962 and several facilities were added over the years. The church serves the area with a variety of programs.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Twelve charter members organized this congregation in 1895 under the Rev. G. W. Green, building a sanctuary in 1902 on lots donated by G. W. Gunter. Over the following decades it launched missions, youth and women's groups, and even a daughter church at Shady Grove. Renamed First Baptist Church of Smithfield in 1958, it built a new sanctuary in 1962 and grew alongside the community now called North Richland Hills.
Why it matters
It traces how a small frontier-era congregation anchored a rural settlement that has since been absorbed into the Dallas–Fort Worth suburbs.
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Related people
- · G. W. Green
- · G. W. Gunter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Smithfield Masonic Lodge No. 455 A.F. & A.M.
North Richland Hills, TX
This marker records the founding of a Masonic lodge whose organizational meeting was held on July 13, 1875, first known as the Grand Prairie Lodge. In its earliest days the fraternal group met inside the Zion Church until members raised their own lodge building in 1876. The account reflects how frontier-era Texas communities built civic and social institutions almost as soon as they took root.
Alfred Madison Hightower
N.Richland Hills, TX
Alfred M. Hightower arrived near Smithfield from Illinois in 1858 to ranch, and though he opposed secession, he cast his lot with the South once war broke out. As a Confederate mounted rifleman he fought at Elkhorn Tavern (Pea Ridge) in Arkansas, one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi. He tried Kansas in the 1870s before returning to ranch here until his death, leaving his name on a nearby street.
Smithfield Cemetery
North Richland Hills, TX
This cemetery began in the early 1870s when Eli Smith — the namesake of Smithfield, who came from Missouri to Texas around 1859 — gave part of his farm for a burying ground. Its oldest marked grave, an infant's, dates to 1872, and more than seventy-five graves come from that first decade, including Smith's own. Among those laid to rest here are pioneer physician Lilburn Howard Colley, for whom Colleyville is named, and Civil War veterans from both Union and Confederate armies.
Eli Smith
N. Richland Hills, TX
As Anglo settlers pushed into North Texas in the mid-1800s, small farming communities grew up around whatever church, school, or gin a generous neighbor could provide. Eli Smith, a Missouri native who came to Tarrant County in 1859, donated part of his farm about 1876 for a Methodist church and cemetery in the settlement then called Zion. Grateful residents renamed the place Smithfield in his honor, though Smith died suddenly just shy of his thirty-first birthday and lies buried here.