Site of Prairie Point Community

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Burnet County, the story of Prairie Point is one of those quiet, persistent stories. Anglo settlers started arriving in this part of the county in the 1850s, and by the 1870s they had put down real roots.

Cattle ranches, sheep ranches, family farms. People building something out of what the land offered. Then, as communities do, they started building for each other.

A community school opened in 1882. That school became the center of things. The very next year, 1883, the Prairie Point Missionary Baptist Church was organized, and they met right there in the schoolhouse.

Shared walls, shared purpose. Now here's where the story takes a turn. In 1890, the schoolhouse burned.

Just like that, the congregation found themselves without a roof. So they did what people out here have always done when the situation calls for it. They worshipped under a brush arbor.

No walls, no ceiling but branches and sky, holding services until a new school could be erected. When that new school went up, the congregation moved back inside, and they met there together until 1906, when the church finally built a sanctuary of its own. That school, the one that had anchored this whole community, kept its doors open all the way until 1921.

And the church, which had survived a fire and open-air winters and decades of change, carried on until it was disbanded in 1957. Prairie Point never made the big maps. But for the better part of a century, it was somebody's whole world.

What the marker says

Anglo settlement of this part of Burnet County began in the 1850s. By the 1870s settlers had established cattle and sheep ranches as well as a number of family farms. A community school opened in 1882 and remained in operation until 1921. The Prairie Point Missionary Baptist Church was organized in 1883 and met in the schoolhouse until it burned in 1890. The congregation worshipped in a brush arbor until a new school was erected, then met at the school until 1906, when a new sanctuary was built. The church eventually was disbanded in 1957. (1993)