EAST LAMPASAS

According to the 1860 census, approximately 1/6 of Lampasas’s 1,000 residents at the time were enslaved Black or mixed-race people. After Emancipation, many Black families remained in the Lampasas area, settling east of Sulphur Creek in what came to be known as “East Lampasas” – considered an entirely separate town with an almost exclusively Black population.

Four historic resources located near one another in east Lampasas are endangered - the Fourth Street Church, the Lampasas Colored School, the New Hope Baptist Church, and the Moses Hughes Mill and Dam ruins.

FOURTH STREET CHURCH

Situated on the west bank of Sulphur Creek, this church was originally built in the 1920s as St. Christopher’s Catholic Church by a group of Mexican Catholics who were not permitted to attend services at St. Mary’s, the white Catholic Church in Lampasas. After St. Mary’s integrated in the 1950s, the St. Christopher’s church building was sold and became an auto body shop.

Evidently not an ideal building for a body shop, the building was vacant when it was purchased by the Lampasas African Methodist Episcopal congregation in 1964. It was renamed St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church and thrived as both a religious and social center for the Black community of East Lampasas for decades. It eventually fell victim to population decline and finally closed its doors around 2010. After a severe storm in 2019 caused the roof to cave in and several walls to collapse.

LAMPASAS COLORED SCHOOL

In 1898, professor Thomas L. Williams, a graduate of Prairie View A&M, purchased a lot on the east bank of Sulphur Creek in East Lampasas to establish a school for black students. A donated wood-frame schoolhouse was moved on to the property.

In 1922, citizens voted in favor of building a new school for black students. The new Lampasas Colored School building was constructed in April-May of 1923 in front of the existing wooden schoolhouse, which was then demolished. The flat-roofed, limestone structure had only two rooms, which quickly became inadequate for the increasing Black population in East Lampasas. In 1927, the school board was forced to split the school day between the younger and older children, with each group using the building for 4 hours per day. In 1948, improvements to the building included a covered stone entry on the east façade, two new bathrooms on the west, and an extension to the south to accommodate a stage.

Throughout the 1940s the Lampasas Colored School offered only ten grades. In order to get their high school diplomas, students had to spend their last two years of high school away from home in cities with Black schools that offered all twelve grades, such as Austin, San Antonio or Temple. In 1951 the school board voted to allow the Colored School to begin teaching twelve grades. The school closed in 1963 when Lampasas schools integrated, and the building was sold to Lampasas County to be used for storage. Large garage door openings were cut into both the south and west walls.

By 2001 the building had been sold to a private individual who intended to raze it and salvage the limestone. A group of preservation-minded citizens intervened to prevent the destruction of the oldest public school building still standing in Lampasas. A non-profit was formed which successfully raised the funds necessary to restore the exterior of the building to its original 1923 appearance. The Lampasas Colored School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and designated a Recorded Texas Historical Landmark in 2009, however the interior restoration has not been completed. Today the vacant building is owned by the City of Lampasas.

NEW HOPE BAPTIST CHURCH

The New Hope Baptist congregation was organized in East Lampasas during the Reconstruction Era in 1869 by formerly enslaved residents. In the late 19th century, the congregation moved to the present location on Sulphur Creek and constructed a new church building. This move may have occurred around the same time the Colored School was established at this location in 1898.

The current church building dates to the 1920s, and is at least the third building that has been used by the congregation during its long history. Early 1900s Lampasas newspapers are full of items about the New Hope Baptist choir providing music at civic events and celebrations. The congregation also hosted programs at their church on “Negro Health” and at white churches on maintaining good race relations and mutual respect.

There were once as many as six Black churches in Lampasas at one time, but the Black population began to shrink in the late 20th century as more young people moved away in search of better opportunities. As that happened, the churches closed one by one. New Hope Baptist Church closed its doors within the last few years, and the building was deeded to the City of Lampasas.

MOSES HUGHES MILL & DAM RUINS

Moses Hughes arrived in what is now Lampasas in 1853 with his seriously ill wife hoping that the mineral springs he had heard about would cure her. After several months of drinking and bathing in the sulfur-smelling water, his wife recovered and the family became some of the first Anglo settlers in the area around the springs. In 1855, another early anglo settler, George W. Scott built a mill on Sulphur Creek for grinding corn and wheat. Moses Hughes came to own this mill in 1867 and operated it for the following 25 years.

By 1899, the mill had been retrofitted to generate electricity - enough to power all of the electric lights in Lampasas. The Texas Academy of Science published the Water Power of Texas in 1901, which contains a description of this electric power plant: “The electric light plant is in the suburbs of Lampasas and has a stone dam eighteen feet in height above the foundation and fourteen feet above the river bed, and 150 feet long. The water is conveyed by a race nearly 300 yards long to the powerhouse, where a fall of fourteen feet is obtained.”

The structure burned in 1941 leaving only its three-story rock walls which were destroyed a year later as part of a flood control project. Sections of the dam, as well as parts of the mill building’s foundation walls, are still visible in and along Sulphur Creek. Located directly behind the Lampasas Colored School and New Hope Baptist Church, pools of spring water created by the old ruins have been used for swimming and recreation by generations of East Lampasas residents.

Currently, the City of Lampasas owns the Colored School and the New Hope Baptist Church buildings , and has not shown any interest in maintaining or restoring the sites which have deteriorated due to neglect. The mill site and Fourth Street Church are privately owned. The Fourth Street Church is the most endangered of the four, as the walls have collapsed leaving the building open to the weather.

UPDATE: In 2024, the nonprofit Lampasas Conservancy was created to work with volunteer groups, other non-profits and the City of Lampasas to oversee and coordinate, in a multi-year project, the restoration of these four adjacent sites located in the historically African-American old East Lampasas. The Fourth Street Church property has been conveyed to the organization. Once restored, Lampasas Conservancy will work toward incorporating all four sites into a public park.

The group will rely on donations and grants to raise the necessary funds to make this project possible. Visit lampasasconservancy.org to learn more and make a donation!

LOCATION: Near 604 College Street, Lampasas (Lampasas County)

DESIGNATION: NRHP, RTHL (Colored School)

STATUS: Endangered

RESOURCE TYPE: Institutional, Municipal, African-American Heritage, Religious, District

YEAR LISTED: 2023

Historic Resources of East Lampasas

Amarillo Santa Fe Railroad Depot

Caroline Gilbert Hinchee House