Old Moulton Baptist Church

Duane's take

The official marker for Old Moulton Baptist Church tells it like this, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, you want to talk about a building that's been pulling double and triple duty since before most of Texas had paved roads, let's talk about what rose up in Lavaca County back in 1873. It started with twenty-five people.

Just twenty-five. Former members of the Live Oak Church, the one located out near Nickel, Texas, they came together and organized what would become the Old Moulton Baptist Church. Twenty-five souls deciding they were going to build something that would last.

And build they did. They raised a two-story structure, started in 1873, and on January 31, 1874, they laid the cornerstone. Now that is the kind of date a community remembers.

Cold month, serious work, mortar and stone and intention all pressed together. Here's where the story gets interesting, because that upper story, it wasn't just sitting there gathering dust. The Masonic Lodge moved right in and used it as their own until 1894.

After that, it served as a schoolroom. The whole top floor, doing the work of community and learning, right up there above the congregation. Then, around the turn of the century, that upper story was removed.

Gone. The building settled into itself, one story from then on. But before that happened, 1886 brought a storm mean enough that the whole structure needed braces put in afterward just to keep it standing.

The building took the hit, got reinforced, and kept going. And the lower floor, that Baptist congregation never stopped meeting. Continuously, since 1874.

That word continuously is doing a lot of work, and it earns every bit of it. On October 24, 1948, the congregation gathered to celebrate seventy-five years. Seventy-five years of Sundays, storms, shared walls with a Masonic Lodge, a schoolroom overhead, and one cornerstone laid on a January day in 1874.

Twenty-five people started it. And it outlasted just about everything else around it.

What the marker says

Organized 1873 by 25 former members of the Live Oak Church located near Nickel, Texas. Two-story structure built 1873-74; cornerstone laid January 31, 1874. Upper story used by Masonic Lodge until 1894; later served as schoolroom; removed about turn of century. Braces placed in structure after 1886 storm. Lower floor used continuously since 1874 as Baptist church. Congregation celebrated 75th anniversary on October 24, 1948. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark -- 1970