Sand Hill Baptist Church - Bowie County, TX
N 33° 22.133 W 094° 32.379
15S E 356766 N 3693242
Sand Hill Baptist Church is at 2249 FM 561, in rural Bowie County a little over two miles northwest of Simms, TX.
Waymark Code: WM198VW
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 12/26/2023
Views: 1
A 2016 Texas Historical Marker notes the church's 1859 establishment -- as seen on the building above the entrance -- but is focused primarily on the adjacent cemetery:
Sand Hill Baptist Church organized as a congregation in 1859 in southwestern Bowie County. Two years later, Sarah Gillespie deeded two acres for a church and cemetery to J.R. Alexander, et al as church trustees. The earliest known burials in the cemetery are Edward Lewis Cox (1788-1849), George H. McAdams (1805-1850) and Susanna Isabell Looney (1844-1850).
Dozens of military veterans are buried here, representing conflicts from the U.S.-Mexico War to present. A small contingent of U.S. Army soldiers were stationed here after the Civil War, and a number of them are buried at Sand Hill along with several Confederate soldiers. There are also at least two formerly enslaved people buried here. G.W. Coker (1794-1860) and Mary Coker (1798-1883). Buried in an above-ground tomb, Jim T. Lindsey (1926-2013) grew up in the Sand Hill area and became a prominent businessman and politician, serving eight years as a state legislator, including one term as Speaker of the House. Other notables buried at Sand Hill include: Lewis Alexander (1822-1889), who served as Sheriff (1858-1862) and as District Clerk (1864-1889), John L. Byrd Jr. (1935-1995), a member of the federal Senior Executive Service and inductee in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame in 1995; and Geraldine F. Tidwell (1923-1971), Bowie County Clerk (1962-1971).
The Sand Hill Cemetery Association was organized in 1958 to help maintain and beautify the cemetery. The cemetery is located at the top of a hill overlooking a picturesque valley to the east. Graves are oriented east-west with the oldest graves located on the north side of the cemetery. Now much larger than in its early days, Sand Hill now includes seven-and-a half acres and more than 1600 graves.
There's otherwise not much to be found about this church beyond occasional references in obituaries and web-spidered directory listings, some of which list the street number as 2161 instead of 2249 or provide an off-site address (probably for mail delivery). The grounds are reasonably well-kept, maybe a bit overgrown out front, and the building looks like it was constructed at the earliest in the middle of the 20th century, probably later.