Desdemona First Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Desdemona First Baptist Church, out in Eastland County. Now settle in, because this one goes back a ways. All the way back to the summer of 1872, when there was no building, no steeple, no pews.

Just the sky above, and the Spanish oaks along the banks of Hog Creek about a mile south of where we're standing. That's where a man named Reverend Johnnie Northcutt gathered folks together for what the marker calls brush arbor meetings. Early settlers came by wagon, by horseback, by buggy, and some just on foot, all of them making their way through that open country to stand in the shade of those oaks and hear Northcutt preach.

Nine charter members organized the church that very same year. Nine people. You hold that number in mind.

Come fall of 1872, the meetings moved indoors, into a schoolhouse that Johnny Carruth and Charlie Mitchell had built near the Hog Creek site. Monthly services. Regular as the seasons.

The congregation called themselves the Rockdale Baptist Church back then. But things were changing. By 1877 the community had its first post office, the village of Desdemona was taking shape, and the congregation built their first real sanctuary right there in town.

Around that same time, the name changed too. Rockdale Baptist became Desdemona First Baptist Church. And church life filled out the way it does in a small Texas community.

Box suppers, baptisms, picnic services out at area lakes and water tanks, and revivals, the marker says lengthy revivals, the kind that stretched on and left an impression. That was the rhythm of it. Then the ground itself changed the story.

Oil was discovered here, and by 1919 Desdemona had gone from a small village to a booming oil town. You can imagine what that kind of boom does to a place, the noise, the crowds, the whole character of a community shifting under your feet. The congregation felt it.

So in 1921 and 1922 they built a new sanctuary, right here at this site, on land donated by C.H. and Fannie Genoway. A gift of ground so a congregation could breathe. Nine people under the Spanish oaks in the summer of 1872.

A church still serving its community more than a hundred and twenty years later when this marker was placed in 1993. That's not just a building. That's a story that kept going.

What the marker says

This church was organized by nine charter members in 1872. Religious observances began with brush arbor meetings organized in the summer of 1872 by The Rev. Johnnie Northcutt. Early settlers traveled by wagon, horseback, buggy, and on foot to meet under the canopy of Spanish oaks along the banks of nearby Hog Creek (about 1 mile south) to hear Northcutt's Baptist sermons. Beginning in the fall of 1872 monthly services were held in a schoolhouse built near the Hog Creek site by Johnny Carruth and Charlie Mitchell. The congregation, originally called Rockdale Baptist Church, built their first sanctuary in the village of Desdemona shortly after the establishment of the community's first post office in 1877. About that time the church was renamed Desdemona First Baptist Church. Box suppers, baptisms, picnic services at area lakes and water tanks, and lengthy revivals soon became routine activities for the congregation. The discovery of oil here transformed Desdemona from a small village to a booming oil town by 1919. To escape the crowded conditions of Desdemona the congregation built a new sanctuary at this site in 1921-22 on land donated by C.H. and Fannie Genoway. The congregation, active in various missionary efforts, continues to serve the local community. (1993)