Shiloh Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. On September the twenty-first, 1871, thirteen people walked into Kirby Chapel Methodist Church, not too far from where we're standing now, each one carrying letters of transfer from other congregations. They hadn't come to worship with the Methodists that day.

They'd come to build something of their own. And build it they did, right then and there, banding together as the Shiloh Baptist Church. The Reverend Jesse Tubb and Deacon John M.

McGinty were on hand to assist with the organization, and you get the sense those were exactly the kind of steady hands you'd want for that kind of work. Thirteen people. That's where it all started.

Ten years passed, and that congregation had grown enough, and rooted itself deeply enough, that they raised up a building of their own, right here at this site, which sat adjacent to the Pond Creek School in those days. The school eventually closed, but Shiloh kept on. By the early nineteen hundreds, the membership had swelled to around a hundred souls.

A second building went up in 1908, and it served this community faithfully for decades, right up until 1957, when a storm came through and destroyed it. Now, that's the kind of setback that can silence a congregation. But Shiloh Baptist was not the silencing kind.

Within a year, by 1958, a third sanctuary had been built. And then in 1961, they added a wing. Thirteen people with letters of transfer and a shared intention.

That's the seed of all of it.

What the marker says

On Sept. 21, 1871, at nearby Kirby Chapel Methodist Church, thirteen people with letters of transfer from other congregations banded together as the Shiloh Baptist Church. The Rev. Jesse Tubb and Deacon John M, McGinty assisted with the organization. Ten years later the congregation erected a building of its own at this site, then adjacent to the Pond Creek School, which later was closed. By the early 1900s Shiloh Church had about 100 members. A second building, constructed 1908, served until destroyed by storm in 1957. The third sanctuary, built in 1958, had a wing added in 1961.