Soda Springs
Soda Springs, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early settlers were attracted to this area of Parker County by the abundant water supply available from the Brazos River and Soda Springs. A number of farming and ranching families established homes here, and a Baptist congregation was soon organized by the Reverend George W. Slaughter. A log church was erected in the 1850s and served the congregation until 1895, when it was replaced by a new frame structure. A one-room school served the community until 1945. The Soda Springs Cemetery, established in the 1850s, contains the graves of many area pioneers. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The reliable water of the Brazos River and Soda Springs drew farming and ranching families to this corner of Parker County in the mid-1800s. The Rev. George W. Slaughter soon gathered a Baptist congregation, which raised a log church in the 1850s and used it until a frame building replaced it in 1895. A one-room school taught local children until 1945, and the community's cemetery, begun in the 1850s, holds many of the area's pioneers.
Why it matters
Soda Springs shows how the simple promise of dependable water shaped where pioneers settled and how their small communities took root on the Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · George W. Slaughter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Poe Prairie
Millsap, TX
Poe Prairie grew up as a community of farm families in Parker County, taking its name from James William Poe, a Baptist minister who settled here in the mid-1870s. Its cemetery began sorrowfully in 1879 with the burial of a one-year-old child, and the McCasland family later donated land for a cemetery, school, and church—the trio of institutions around which rural Texas communities organized their lives. The school served the neighborhood until it merged into the Millsap district in 1928.
Millsap United Methodist Church
Millsap, TX
Methodists were worshiping here in 1875, five years before the town of Millsap even had a name, meeting first in a small church on donated land. The congregation raised its present building in 1924, laid out in the cruciform shape of a cross after early Christian tradition, and later added stained glass depicting the twelve disciples. For well over a century it has served as a steady gathering place for this small Parker County community.
Brock Methodist Church
Brock, TX
In 1876 James and Sarah Maddux moved from Arkansas to this Parker County community, then called Olive Branch, and in 1880 donated land for a school, cemetery, and churches. The Methodist congregation they helped charter in 1882 met first in a brush arbor, then a log building, sharing quarters with the Baptists until it built its own sanctuary in 1908. Through decline and revival, the church has remained active in community life for well over a century.
Battern Cemetery
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Henry Hill Battern left Virginia for Parker County around 1860, buying 160 acres that included this one-acre burial ground. His second wife, Sarah Jane, died that same year and is said to be the first laid to rest here. A Civil War veteran who served as the community's unofficial doctor and as a local justice of the peace, Battern was widely respected despite having no formal medical training; the last known burial, his son Francis, came in 1934.