First Baptist Church of Crowley

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Way out in southwestern Tarrant County, there's a church with a story that just keeps adding chapters — and every single time it ran out of room, it found a way to grow. That's the First Baptist Church of Crowley, and it goes back further than you might think.

The earliest record of this congregation dates to 1896 — the year it was established and admitted into the Tarrant County Baptist Association. At the helm was the Reverend G. W.

Green, pastor of a congregation that numbered exactly twenty-seven members. Twenty-seven souls in a rural setting, just getting started. Now, two years before that new congregation even had its first written record, somebody had the foresight to purchase a town lot on Tarrant Street.

And in 1899, they put that lot to work — a brand-new auditorium went up, and the church had itself a proper home. For a while, anyway. See, the Sunday School program kept growin', and growin', and growin'.

So in 1947, the church accepted a donated army barrack — yes, an actual army barrack — and remodeled the interior to handle the overflow. A temporary fix, they called it. And temporary it was, because in 1951 a new sanctuary went up.

That Tarrant Street location had carried them a long, long way. But by 1974, there simply wasn't room left to stretch. The church acquired a new site — nine point three acres — and four years later, a new sanctuary was dedicated on that ground.

Then came the move that got people talking. In 1980, the congregation didn't just leave their old education building behind. That two-story building, constructed back in 1966 on Tarrant Street, was relocated — physically moved — to the new site.

Much publicized, the marker says, and I'd imagine so. You don't just pick up a two-story building and walk it down the road every day. By 1991, that congregation which had started with twenty-seven members had grown to more than one thousand.

They gathered that year to celebrate their 95th Anniversary — a small rural congregation that became a leading suburban church, one expansion at a time. Twenty-seven members to over a thousand. One lot on Tarrant Street to nine point three acres.

Some churches are built in a day. This one was built in a century.

What the marker says

Originally a small congregation in a rural setting, this church has evolved through a continuous succession of expansions into a leading suburban church serving southwestern Tarrant County. The earliest record mentioning the church dates to 1896, the year of its establishment and admission into the Tarrant County Baptist Association. The Rev. G. W. Green served as pastor of the original 27-member congregation. In 1899 the church began services in a newly erected auditorium, built on a town lot on Tarrant Street purchased two years earlier. Expansion needs caused by steady growth in the Sunday School program were satisfied temporarily with the interior remodeling of an army barrack donated to the church in 1947 and the erection of a new sanctuary in 1951. The lack of room for additional facilities at its original Tarrant Street location resulted in the acquisition of this 9.3-acre site in 1974 and dedication of a new sanctuary four years later. The church undertook a much publicized relocation of its 2-story education building, constructed in 1966, from Tarrant Street to this location in 1980. In 1991 the congregation, which numbered more than one thousand members, celebrated its 95th Anniversary. (1992, 1998)