DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it — my job's just to make sure you hear every word of it. Now, the Leesville Baptist Church has been standing watch over Gonzales County long enough to have a tale worth pulling over for. The congregation organized in 1875, and they built themselves a meeting place — modest, faithful, doing its job.
Then 1886 rolled around, and a storm made short work of it. Just gone. That's the kind of thing that'll test a congregation's resolve real quick.
But these folks didn't scatter. They looked across O'Neal Creek, found a piece of ground that suited them, bought it from a pioneer settler by the name of N. H.
Guinn, and got to work. By 1887 and into 1888, they had themselves a new simple frame church standing on this very site. It even had a steeple reaching up toward the sky — for a while, anyway.
That steeple came down in 1924. No storm took it this time; it was removed, quiet and deliberate. Then 1936 brought a disastrous flood, and Leesville itself got relocated — three quarters of a mile west, out along the state highway, starting fresh.
Most of the old town just faded away. But this church stayed put. It's still here, marking the ground where Leesville used to be.
Storm, flood, a town that moved on — and this little frame building outlasted all of it.
What the marker says
The first meeting place of this congregation, organized in 1875, was destroyed by a storm in 1886. The membership then moved across O'Neal Creek to this site, purchased from pioneer settler N. H. Guinn, and erected this simple frame church in 1887-88. The steeple which once topped the building was removed in 1924. After a disastrous flood in 1936, Leesville was relocated along the state highway (3/4 mi. W). This church is one of the structures that mark the old townsite. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976.