First Baptist Church of Lockney

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passin' it along just the way it stands. Back in December of 1890, out on the wide open plains of Floyd County, Texas, a preacher by the name of Reverend I. B.

Kimbrough gathered nineteen charter members together and organized the First Missionary Baptist Church of Floyd County. Nineteen people. That's it.

That's the whole congregation at the start. Now, they didn't have a church building. They didn't even have a proper meetinghouse.

What they had was a dugout. R. M.

Irick opened up his dugout home to those early worshippers, and when that wasn't enough, there was the Irick Schoolhouse, sitting southwest of Lockney, that served them too. Think about that a moment. A congregation finding its faith in a home dug right into the earth itself.

That's about as rooted as a church can get. They kept at it, year after year, until 1899 rolled around. That's when something significant happened.

The congregation merged with the Lockney Baptist Church of Lone Star. Now, you might expect a merger like that to swallow up the smaller body, erase its name, fold it into something new. But these folks held on.

They retained the name First Missionary Baptist Church of Floyd County. The name stayed. The people stayed.

And eventually, the town schoolhouse became their meeting place while they worked toward something more permanent. That something arrived in 1906, when the congregation finally built a sanctuary of their own. A real place to gather.

A real place to worship. And then, in 1913, came one last change. The name was updated to the First Baptist Church of Lockney.

From a dugout in the plains to a named and standing church in the town of Lockney. Nineteen members. One reverend.

December of 1890. That's where it all began.

What the marker says

Led by The Rev. I. B. Kimbrough, nineteen charter members organized the First Missionary Baptist Church of Floyd County in December 1890. Early worship services were held in R. M. Irick's dugout home and the Irick Schoolhouse southwest of Lockney. In 1899 the congregation merged with Lockney Baptist Church of Lone Star but retained the name First Missionary Baptist Church of Floyd County. The congregation met in the town schoolhouse until a sanctuary was built in 1906. The name was changed to First Baptist Church of Lockney in 1913. (1990)