First Baptist Church of Jacksboro

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture Jacksboro, Texas, 1875. United States soldiers are still manning nearby Fort Richardson, so this is frontier country, no question about it.

And right there, in the middle of all that, seven charter members decided it was time to organize a church. Seven people. That's it.

That's your foundation. The First Baptist Church of Jacksboro, born. Now, they didn't have a building of their own, not yet, so they made do the way folks on the frontier always made do.

They gathered in the Masonic Lodge hall. They gathered in the county courthouse. Wherever there was a roof and some room, that congregation found its way in.

Then, in 1889, they finally raised their first church building. Their own walls, their own roof. Took fourteen years from those seven souls, but they got there.

The story doesn't slow down there, though. One pastor, the Reverend Rice C. Farmer, took on a mission bigger than Sunday sermons.

He was largely responsible for bringing North Texas Baptist College to Jacksboro, and that college stood there from 1891 to 1897. One man, one congregation, one town, and a college to show for it. A second church building went up in 1906.

A third followed, built out between 1928 and 1959. The church kept growing, kept building, kept planting itself deeper into Jack County soil. And through a long stretch of those years, one man held the pastoral reins.

The Reverend Alvin R. Bilberry, born in 1885, served as pastor here from 1925 to 1952. The longest term of any pastor this church has known.

Seven charter members in a borrowed hall, soldiers at the fort just down the road, and look what they built. That's a foundation that held.

What the marker says

United States soldiers still manned nearby Fort Richardson when this church was organized with seven charter members in 1875. The congregation met in the Masonic Lodge hall and county courthouse before erecting their first church building in 1889. One pastor, the Reverend Rice C. Farmer, was largely responsible for the location of North Texas Baptist College in Jacksboro, 1891-1897. The second church building was erected in 1906, the third in 1928-1959. The Rev. Alvin R. Bilberry (b. 1885) served the longest term as pastor here, 1925-1952. (1976)