Gomez Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same way. On August 3, 1903, nine worshipers gathered under a wagon sheet tent. Not a chapel, not a clapboard meetinghouse.

A wagon sheet tent. And from that modest shelter, they organized a Baptist church. The Reverend J.

R. Miller led them, and the congregation settled into a rhythm of meeting once a month in the Gomez schoolhouse. Once a month.

You learn to make those Sundays count. By 1909, they had themselves a one-room sanctuary. A real building.

But here's where the story gets a little west Texas, because nothing stays put out here forever. When highway construction rolled through and Gomez itself got relocated, that little one-room church got picked up and moved three-quarters of a mile to the northwest. The whole thing.

And the congregation just kept on going. In 1936 they erected a larger church building, and then in 1942 something that had been a long time coming finally arrived: the first full-time pastor. In 1953 the old Gomez School was converted for church use.

Seven years later, in 1960, it was destroyed by fire. Gone. But they replaced it with a new structure and kept the doors open.

Nine people under a wagon sheet tent in 1903 had grown into something that outlasted schoolhouses, fires, and a highway that tried to move the whole town. They made it all the way to 1992. That's when the Gomez Baptist Church was disbanded.

The marker says so right there on a supplemental plaque, matter-of-fact as the west Texas wind. Nearly a century of Sundays, and then quiet.

What the marker says

On August 3, 1903, nine worshipers gathered together under a wagon sheet tent to organize a Baptist church. Led by the Rev. J. R. Miller, the congregation met once a month in the Gomez schoolhouse. A one-room sanctuary, erected in 1909, was moved three-quarters of a mile northwest when Gomez was relocated due to highway construction. A larger church building was erected in 1936, and by 1942 the church had its first full-time pastor. The Gomez School, converted for church use in 1953, was destroyed by fire in 1960 and was replaced by a new structure. (1988) SUPPLEMENTAL PLAQUE: Gomez Baptist Church was disbanded in 1992.