St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Settle in, because this one goes back a good long way. Before there was a Mineola, before the rail lines came cutting through East Texas, before most of the names you'd recognize on a map out here had even been spoken aloud, there was a community called Sodom.

That's right. Sodom, Texas, Wood County. Extensive settlement in this area had begun after the end of the Texas Revolution in 1836, and when the Texas legislature created Wood County in 1850, folks kept on coming.

By 1871, the community of Sodom had taken shape, and that is the year the Rev. John Branham founded St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.

He didn't found it in a grand building. He founded it in a home. The home of Pinkney and Bettie Brooks, to be exact.

Six charter members put their names to it: Mandy Hall, Mariah Lee, Mary Garrett, Ellis Lee, Willis Oliver, and Bettie Brooks herself, the woman whose home had opened its doors. Six names. A congregation.

A beginning. Now, 1873 brought a change of scenery in more ways than one. The town got renamed Mineola, it acquired two new rail lines, and that same year, the members of St.

Paul built their very first sanctuary, at the corner of Harris and Stone streets. The church held its early baptisms in a creek near what is now Wren Street, and decade by decade the congregation grew. By 1897, St.

Paul purchased this site and put up a new sanctuary. Then came the Rev. T.B.

Johnson, who served the church from 1914 to 1941, and under his leadership the congregation remodeled that early sanctuary. In 1958, they replaced it altogether with a larger structure. The Rev.

Johnson also served as moderator of the East Texas Baptist Association, a role that the Rev. Lawrence W. Pryor would later carry as well.

Pryor pastored the church from 1945 to 1949 and served as president of the Baptist Training Union Congress on top of that. And then there is the Rev. Charles Colquitt, who gave more than forty-one years of service to this congregation.

More than forty-one years. That is not a tenure, that is a life's work. The marker is careful to note that the story of St.

Paul was never just its pastors. Deacons, deaconesses, junior deacons, trustees, men and women across generations, all of them part of what kept this church standing. From a home in a community called Sodom, to a sanctuary at Harris and Stone, to a creek baptism near Wren Street, to this site, St.

Paul Missionary Baptist Church has been a thread running through Mineola all the way back to 1871. The marker calls it a tie to area pioneers, and a place for worship, education, service, and fellowship. Some things, it turns out, are built to last.

What the marker says

Extensive settlement in this area began after the end of the Texas Revolution in 1836. The Texas legislature created Wood County in 1850, influencing further settlement. The community of Sodom developed here by 1871, when the Rev. John Branham founded St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in the home of Pinkney and Bettie Brooks. Charter members were Mandy Hall, Mariah Lee, Mary Garrett, Ellis Lee, Willis Oliver and Bettie Brooks. In 1873, renamed Mineola, the town boasted two new rail lines. That same year, St. Paul church members built their first sanctuary at the corner of Harris and Stone streets. The church held early baptisms in a creek near present Wren Street, and the congregation grew over the next decades. In 1897, it purchased this site and constructed a new sanctuary. Later, under the leadership of the Rev. T.B. Johnson, who served the church from 1914 to 1941, the church remodeled its early sanctuary. In 1958, the congregation replaced it with a larger structure. The Rev. Johnson served as moderator of the East Texas Baptist Association, as did the Rev. Lawrence W. Pryor, pastor from 1945 to 1949, who was also president of the Baptist Training Union Congress. These men and other pastors, including the Rev. Charles Colquitt, who served for more than 41 years, helped establish the congregation as a long-standing Mineola institution. Other church leaders included numerous deacons, deaconesses, junior deacons, and men and women who served as trustees and in other capacities. St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church continues to grow and serve the Mineola community as a tie to area pioneers, and as a place for worship, education, service and fellowship. (2006)