The history of Waco, before the Civil War, was really the Tale of Two Cities — Waco Village and East Waco.

Waco Village was a town of prosperous businesses, comfortable hotels and humble churches (First Methodist, 1850; First Baptist, 1851; and First Presbyterian, 1855, to name a few). It even boasted some institutions of higher learning, such as Waco University (founded 1856) and the Methodist Female College (founded 1857).

One the other side of the Brazos River, however, connected only by ferry, lay East Waco. Known as the home of some of the grittier industries — cotton mills and brick kilns, for example — the small residential settlement had a few businesses that traded goods and livestock with its neighbors across the water.

East Waco Elementary, the first free public school in Greater Waco built with tax dollars, opened in 1884 at 409 Turner St. with this structure. Note the Paul Quinn campus in the distance on the right, home of the oldest institution west of the Mississippi of black higher learning. Founded in 1872 in Austin, Paul Quinn College came to Waco in 1881.
The Texas Collection at Baylor University

The history of one of East Waco’s oldest institutions, its first Baptist church, illustrated some of the societal forces that affected life in this corner of frontier Texas.

That church — which was known as East Waco (1868-1913) and then as Turner Street (1913-1960) and located now for almost 50 years in Woodway as Westwood Baptist — witnessed the transformation of Waco from wild and woolly outpost to urban center over the generations.

Westwood’s pastor in 2003, the Rev. Gary Tapley, penned a church history to mark the 135th anniversary of the institution’s 1868 founding.

The war had left both sides of the Brazos hurting, he wrote, but when John Baylis Earle’s cotton mill in East Waco returned to production in 1866, jobs began returning. That year, entrepreneurs chartered the company to build the Waco Suspension Bridge and the Waco Tap Railroad Co. made plans to bring a spur from Bremond to East Waco.

Meanwhile, about 1867, Rufus Burleson and student ministers from Waco University began conducting Baptist services East Waco. B.D. Arnold, owner of a brick plant, and merchant W.R. Kellum helped pave the way for the creation of a local congregation by opening their homes to worship services.

East Waco Baptist Church was organized May 9, 1868, by Elder Benjamin Walker (an evangelist from a nearby community who helped erect the first EWBC sanctuary) and chartered with 44 members.

Marie Riddle (1889-1971), a schoolteacher at East Waco Elementary from 1907 and its principal since 1922, was lauded by the community when she retired in the spring of 1959.
Texas Collection at Baylor University photo

After the completion of the Waco Suspension Bridge in 1870, the two cities were physically united at last — and politically united the next year when Waco annexed East Waco. In 1872, the first train arrived in East Waco, expanding opportunities for many businesses there, Tapley noted. The year 1874 saw gas lights making their appearance in East Waco, thanks to pipes running under the bridge.

EWBC saw its growth as well. By 1878, its first church home was too small so a new brick church was built at Dallas and Rusk streets. The church was fast becoming the second most prominent church in the Waco Baptist Association, right behind powerful and influential First Baptist.

East Waco was the first pastorate of George W. Truett, who shortly after his enrollment at Baylor in 1893 was called to its pulpit.

As student-pastor, Truett oversaw the church’s next big leap — into a new building at 500 Turner St. (The old church was sold to the Disciples of Christ, and that site is now home to Carter’s Temple Church of God in Christ). The first service took place there on Christmas Eve 1895.

After his graduation from Baylor in 1897, Truett was wooed away by First Baptist Church of Dallas, which he developed into the largest and most important Baptist church in the nation before his death in 1944.

East Waco continued to make history, even reluctantly. In an era when free public schools had a less-than-sterling reputation (some parents thought that the patronize such establishments meant they were “accepting charity”), it was the recipient of the first Waco public school built with tax dollars. East Waco Elementary opened in 1884 at 400 Turner St.

Meanwhile, sometime in 1913, East Waco Baptist changed its name to Turner Street Baptist, while still in its 1895 building. That structure, however, was destroyed by an arsonist in July 1951. For more than a year, services were held in the 1947-vintage Youth Building while the sanctuary was rebuilt. And just seven months after its rededication, the church took a hit from the tornado of May 11, 1953.

Just as the desegregation era was gearing up in greater Waco, East Waco was feeling the demographic shift from predominantly white to increasingly black, Tapley wrote. Decades of racial tension played a role in Turner Street Baptist’s decision to move out to the suburbs.

A real estate enterprise, Lazarus’ Place, pitched a “colored village” neighborhood development near the Paul Quinn campus in the early 20th century. J. Weisman & Co. was most famous in Texas for opening the Lone Star State’s first department store, in Marshall.
Texas Collection at Baylor University image

“These long-held prejudices combined with the surge of Civil Rights activities to make East Waco an uncomfortable place for an Anglo church,” he wrote. Pastor Noel Guice wrote a piece for the newspaper pledging to stay in East Waco, but little more than a year later the congregation voted to buy land in Woodway.

In January 1960, leaders approved the sale of the church and parsonage to Greater Mt. Olive Baptist Church. “Will you earnestly pray for your church that God will help the Negro church to get their loan so that we will have $32,500 to start a church with?” Guice implored his followers.

Turner Street Baptist became Westwood Baptist in November 1960, when it started conducting services in its unfinished building at 7509 Fairway Road.

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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