Olive Branch Baptist Church and Rocky Chapel School

Duane's take

The official marker tells this story, and I'm just the one bringing it down the road to you. Now, out here in Colorado County, there's a piece of ground that holds two stories at once. A church and a school, side by side, carrying the weight of a whole community on their foundations.

The Olive Branch Baptist Church got its start in the eighteen sixties. Think about that for a moment. The eighteen sixties.

The charter members who put their names to that church were Jeff Collier, Jim Shepherd, John Turbin, Jack Johnson, and Gus, Elizah, and Jim Smallwood. Those names matter. Write them on your heart if you can.

Now the church didn't begin right here where the marker stands. It started several miles to the west of this site, and then in eighteen ninety-six it made the move to this very spot. And that move, it turned out, was just the beginning of something bigger.

Because the very next year, eighteen ninety-seven, the Rocky Chapel School opened its doors. Built on property deeded by the families of James and Pothenia Smallwood, that schoolhouse stood and served for decades. Children came and learned and grew, year after year, until nineteen fifty-five, when the Glidden schools merged with Columbus and the old schoolhouse finally stepped back from its long duty.

The marker puts it plain and it puts it right: the early school and church reflect the rich heritage of Glidden's black community. There's no dressing that up. That's the whole story in one sentence.

A people who built their own place of worship, moved it when they needed to, raised a school on land their own families deeded, and kept that school alive for generations. Two buildings. One community.

And a stretch of Colorado County that still remembers who planted roots here.

What the marker says

The Olive Branch Baptist Church was established in the 1860s. Charter members were Jeff Collier, Jim Shepherd, John Turbin, Jack Johnson, and Gus, Elizah, and Jim Smallwood. Begun several miles west of this site, the church moved here in 1896. The following year, the Rocky Chapel School opened. Built on property deeded by the families of James and Pothenia Smallwood, the schoolhouse remained in use until 1955, when the Glidden schools merged with Columbus. The early school and church reflect the rich heritage of Glidden's black community. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986