Original Site of First Baptist Church of Alta Loma

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how Duane tells it back to you. On November the tenth, 1895, twenty-six people walked into a local hotel in Alta Loma, Texas, and decided they were going to build something that would outlast every single one of them. No church building, no steeple, no pews.

Just a hotel, twenty-six charter members, and a conviction. That was the beginning of the First Baptist Church of Alta Loma, the oldest church in Alta Loma and the second oldest Baptist church on the entire Galveston mainland. Think about that for a second.

Second oldest. Out of everything that ever took root in that stretch of coastal Texas, this congregation was there near the very beginning. They organized in a hotel, and then they got to work.

By 1945, they had helped establish the Arcadia Baptist Church. The very next year, 1946, they purchased the U.S.S. Houston Memorial Chapel, a name that carries its own kind of weight.

And then in 1949, they helped organize the Galveston Baptist Association, stitching together something bigger than themselves, just like they had done from that very first meeting in a hotel. Twenty-six names on a charter, a borrowed room, and a story that kept writing itself for decades. Not bad for a congregation that didn't even start in a church.

What the marker says

Original site of oldest church in Alta Loma; second oldest Baptist church on Galveston mainland. Organized on Nov. 10, 1895, in a local hotel; 26 charter members. Established Arcadia Baptist Church, 1945. Purchased "U. S. S. Houston" Memorial Chapel, 1946. Helped organize Galveston Baptist Association in 1949.