Union Missionary Baptist Church
Fannin, Goliad County, Texas
Marker Inscription
UNION MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE 1880s, BAPTISTS IN COLOGNE, A FREEDMAN’S COLONY, ESTABLISHED WHAT WOULD BECOME THE UNION MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE CHURCH’S EARLY TRUSTEES BUILT THE FIRST CHURCH ALONG PERDIDO CREEK IN 1884 AND CALLED IT ST. JOHN. BETWEEN 1886 AND THE 1930s, THE CHURCH WAS LOCATED IN COLOGNE AS MT. CARMEL. ALTHOUGH THE CONGREGATION SPLIT DURING THAT PERIOD, THEY REUNITED IN FANNIN UNDER THE NAME UNION MISSIONARY AFTER A STORM DAMAGED THE MT. CARMEL CHURCH IN THE 1930s. IN 1950 THEY BEGAN RESTORING THE FANNIN CHURCH AND MEMBERS HAVE WORSHIPED IN THIS BUILDING EVER SINCE. THE CONGREGATION’S STRONG FAITH AND TENACITY HELPED THEM TO SERVE THE AREA FOR WELL OVER A CENTURY. (2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Union Missionary Baptist Church traces its beginnings to the 1880s among Baptists in Cologne, a freedmen's colony whose members are believed to have built their first church, St. John, along Perdido Creek in 1884. Known for a time as Mt. Carmel, the congregation split and then reunited in Fannin under the name Union Missionary after a storm damaged their building in the 1930s. Since restoring the Fannin church in 1950, members have worshiped in the same building, sustaining a community of faith for well over a century.
Why it matters
Rooted in a post-emancipation freedmen's colony, the church shows how formerly enslaved Texans built lasting institutions of their own in the decades after the Civil War.
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Related events
- · Founding of the Cologne freedmen's colony
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cologne Community
Fannin, TX
Cologne was founded by formerly enslaved people seeking safety as Reconstruction gave way to renewed white political control and violence in Texas. Freedmen Joseph Smith and George Washington, who had built a prosperous freight and passenger business in Victoria, bought more than five hundred acres along Perdido Creek in 1877 and sold parcels to other Black families. The community built a cemetery, churches, a school, and a post office, and its economy grew when the railroad arrived in 1889—served, unusually for the era, by an integrated depot.
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Fannin Street United Methodist Church
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Founded in 1872, Fannin Street United Methodist Church was one of the earliest African American congregations in Goliad County, established after emancipation as freedpeople who had worshiped alongside their enslavers formed churches of their own. The small country church—steeply gabled with a four-sided cupola and a Cincinnati-cast bell—weathered a string of catastrophes, most terribly the 1902 tornado that destroyed the building and killed fifty parishioners. Rebuilt in 1903 and struck again by lightning in 1976, the congregation endured, living out its motto that "the church is not the building; it's the people."