At the physical and cultural crossroads of Central Texas, cotton 
once ruled as king. Around this demanding monarch, numerous 
communities grew up and thrived. From the distant horizon, the 
communities were marked by church steeples stretching skyward. 
Today, cotton has disappeared from the land, and the communities 
have almost disappeared. Only the churches remain.

    A team of researchers from Baylor University set out to 
understand the staying power of these rural churches and to get to 
know the people who keep them alive while the surrounding 
communities have given way to the larger towns and cities nearby. 
Beyond the power of religion itself, they have uncovered the roles 
of geography, race, ethnicity, and family in giving life to these small 
churches.

    Authors Lois E. Myers and Rebecca Sharpless further our 
understanding of the interplay of religion and culture, the qualities 
of late twentieth-century rural life, and the continuing draw of the 
open country. Photojournalist Clark Baker portrays open-country 
churches and their members in vivid black and white photographs.

    Churches included in the study include the oldest Norwegian 
Lutheran church in Texas, four African American Baptist churches 
organized soon after emancipation, white Southern Baptist 
churches, Protestant and Catholic churches founded by European 
and Mexican immigrants, and one union church that for most of the 
past century accommodated both Methodists and Baptists. Drawing 
on memories of longtime members, church minutes and histories, 
baptism records, and family histories, Myers and Sharpless 
collapse decades of tradition into these enchanting and informative 
pages.

_________________________________________________________

CLARK BAKER is an associate professor of journalism at Baylor 
University in Waco, Texas. The photographer for this project, he 
has both written on photojournalism and exhibited his work 
extensively. LOIS E. MYERS is the associate director of the Institute 
for Oral History at Baylor University. REBECCA SHARPLESS works 
in the history department at TCU.


Number Five: Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life, sponsored by 
Texas A&M University–Commerce


What people are saying about this book

“. . .very rich, insightful material, gathered by arduous oral history 
interviewing . . . adds much to our understanding of these religious 
traditions.”—John B. Boles, editor, Journal of Southern History