First Baptist Church

Description:

• Legend has it that while serving in the Capitol, Sam Houston stopped on the corner of West 10th and Colorado, drove a peg into the ground and proclaimed, "I am a Baptist and right here we will build a Baptist church." While there is little evidence to support this statement, Sam Houston was a member of the church later built at that site, the First Baptist Church. Founded in 1847, the structure was complete by 1857. The Women's Missionary Union was formed during a prayer meeting held in the basement of the church in 1880. The mighty bell, which hung from its steeple, sounded for church meetings, town meetings, fire alarms and during the 1960s, for peace during protest marches. When the church relocated in the 1960s to its present location at Ninth and Trinity, the bell was given a special home on the grounds. The new church features a suspended cross hanging from the arches of the ceiling before a background of fishing nets.
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