DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and friend, this one goes back to the very beginning of Baptist life in Comanche County. Picture it: 1857, out on the South Leon, and the Reverend Richard Howard gathers eight souls willing to call themselves charter members. No walls, no roof to speak of — just a brush arbor, branches and shade and the open Texas sky overhead, right here on this very ground.
That was the first Baptist church formed in all of Comanche County. Started under nothing more than woven timber and faith. Now, early on, when weather or circumstance demanded four walls, those early congregants made their way to a log schoolhouse — still standing, as the marker notes, just three hundred feet to the west.
Later still, they managed to build a proper combination church-and-school, erected near the cemetery. A community making do, then making better. But here's where the story takes a hard turn.
In 1859, the church was dissolved — due to Indian troubles, the marker says, plain and sobering as that. Whatever those troubles cost the people of this place, the congregation could not hold together. Services stopped.
The brush arbor stood quiet. Thirteen years passed. In 1872, South Leon Baptist Church came back to life — reorganized, with James Cunningham and F.
H. Neely stepping up as deacons. Two men willing to anchor something that had already survived being undone once.
The congregation kept on from there. Kept on long enough that in 1906, they raised the present building — the one that still stands today. A brush arbor in 1857.
Dissolved. Reorganized. And still here.
Some things in Texas, it turns out, are harder to stop than they look.
What the marker says
First Baptist church formed in Comanche County. Organized by the Rev. Richard Howard and 8 charter members, under a brush arbor built here, 1857. Early services were held in a log schoolhouse (300 ft. W). Later, combination church-school was built near cemetery. In 1906 the present building was erected. Church was dissolved, 1859, due to Indian troubles; reorganized in 1872 with James Cunningham and F. H. Neely as deacons. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1964