Round Grove Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in western Erath County, there's a church with a story worth pullin' over for. The marker calls it the first church in that whole western stretch of the county, and that's not a small thing to say about a piece of Texas that, back in 1871, was about as settled as a nervous cat.

That was the year the Rev. R. D.

Ross organized Round Grove Baptist Church, bringing together sixteen charter members. Sixteen people. You think about that.

Sixteen souls out there on the edge of things, deciding that what this place needed first, before almost anything else, was a church. The original building went up on land given by the Ross family themselves, built from logs and rough native lumber. Nothing fancy.

Nothing that didn't come from the ground right around it. And then, the very next year, 1872, Round Grove reported the first Sunday School in the entire county. The first one.

Not just in western Erath County. In the county. That little log church on donated land was setting the pace for everybody else.

Now, buildings don't last forever, and that original structure eventually gave way. In 1938 the church was rebuilt. But the congregation, the one Rev.

R. D. Ross pulled together from sixteen willing people back in 1871, that carried right on.

Some things out here are built from rougher stuff than lumber.

What the marker says

First church in western Erath County. Organized by the Rev. R. D. Ross in 1871 with 16 charter members. Had first Sunday School reported in county, 1872. Original church of logs and rough native lumber was built on site given by Ross family; rebuilt 1938. (1972)