Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Duane's take

The way I hear it, this one comes straight from the official marker for Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Tarrant County; let me tell it to you right. Now picture Christmas Day, 1894.

Most folks are home by the fire, bellies full, presents unwrapped. But on December 25th of that year, a state evangelist by the name of the Reverend Frank Tribune was doing something else entirely. He was building a church.

Not with lumber and nails (not yet), but with people. Five of them, to be exact: Ella and Lee Brooks, Katie Patterson, Laura Purvis, and Josephine Wells. Five members.

That was your foundation. That was Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

Now five is a small number to start something meant to last generations. But here's the thing about a small fire: given enough time and the right hands feeding it, it grows. By 1907, those members, with help from the Reverend Doctor A.R.

Griggs, raised up a frame structure right at the corner of Louisiana and Rosedale. An actual building. Walls and a roof to hold everything those five had started.

Then in 1915, the congregation acquired the present site and erected a tabernacle. They were moving, growing, planting deeper roots. In 1919, under the Reverend M.K.

Curry, they broke ground on the brick church building itself. Brick. Permanent.

The kind of structure that says we are not going anywhere. Of course, a brick church don't pay for itself. But the Reverend A.W.

Pryor, who shepherded this congregation from 1924 all the way through 1949, saw to it that the church debt was paid in full during his pastorate. Twenty-five years. That is a man who stayed until the work was done.

And the work kept coming. When the Reverend S.T. Alexander took over as pastor in 1949, he carried the congregation through to 1968; and during those years, an education building was added to the church.

From five people on a Christmas morning to a brick church with an education building, all of it built layer by layer, pastor by pastor, decade by decade. What the Reverend Frank Tribune started with five souls on December 25th, 1894, became something a whole lot bigger than Christmas dinner. It became Mt.

Zion.

What the marker says

On Dec. 25, 1894, state evangelist the Rev. Frank Tribune organized this Baptist church with five members: Ella and Lee Brooks, Katie Patterson, Laura Purvis, and Josephine Wells. With help from the Rev. Dr. A.R. Griggs, the members built a frame structure in 1907 at the corner of Louisiana and Rosedale. In 1915 the present site was acquired and a tabernacle erected. This brick church building was begun in 1919 under the Rev. M.K. Curry. The church debt was paid during the Rev. A.W. Pryor's pastorate, 1924-1949. While the Rev. S.T. Alexander was Pastor, 1949-1968, an education building was added. (1978)