St. Frederick Baptist Church

St. Frederick Baptist Church has served the African American community of Marble Falls for more than 120 years. It was founded in the home of Dicey Yett Johnson in 1893 with a small group of worshipers that became the St. Frederick congregation. Johnson was born into slavery in the nearby Spicewood area and married Green Johnson. They moved with their nine children to Marble Falls, founded in 1887, and lived in a small house behind the Roper Hotel where Dicey was employed. , Dicey used his home as the organizational site of the congregation of the St. Frederick Baptist Church until they started using the former Blazing Star Lodge building in 1899. The African American community once lived in the northeast section of Marble Falls but started to move to the southwest portion of town. To accommodate that change in location in 1907, St. John’s Association traded the land on Main Street for property down the hill from Main Street. Near Avenue L. the building was moved to this new site and remodeled, and soon after church and school resumed at the new site. In 1955 this church located in the “hollow” was torn down and rebuilt at the corner of Avenue N and West First Street. The current church, built in 1978 at Avenue N and West Third Street, survived financial hardships of the 20th century. Since 1985 the church has also seen an outreach center that provides meals for the needy and the homebound of the entire Marble Falls area.