First Baptist Church of Giddings

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it reads. Somewhere in Lee County, in the town of Giddings, there is a church with a story that starts the way all good Texas stories start: quietly, with just a handful of people and a whole lot of conviction. The First Baptist Church of Giddings was founded in 1872.

One year later, in 1873, it had sixteen members. Sixteen. You could seat them all at a couple of long tables and still have room for the cornbread.

Their pastor at that time was J. Budd, and together those sixteen souls were the seed of something that would grow for a century and then some. Their first building went up in 1881, and it stood west of where the present site sits today.

West of it. They eventually moved on, the way growing things do. Now, a church doesn't reach three hundred members across a hundred years without some steady hands on the wheel, and this marker names the ones who stayed long enough to leave a mark.

The pastors who each served ten to fifteen years in that century of growth were Q. T. Simpson, W.

W. Burr, Peter DeYoung, H. L.

McLerran, and J. W. Tripp.

Five names. Five long tenures. Each one adding something to what the next would inherit.

And as of 1972, when this story was set down in stone, the pastor standing at the front of that congregation was the evangelist John Karcher. Sixteen members in 1873. Three hundred strong by 1972.

That's not just growth. That's a century of showing up.

What the marker says

Founded 1872. In 1873 had 16 members, with J. Budd as pastor. First building (1881) was west of present site. Pastors serving 10 to 15 years in church's century of growth to 300 members: Q. T. Simpson, W. W. Burr, Peter DeYoung, H. L. McLerran, J. W. Tripp. Present pastor is evangelist John Karcher. (1972)