Shiloh
Gregg County, TX
Status: Located
Year Established: 1870s
Council of Governments: ETCOG
Public History: SHILOH, TX (GREGG COUNTY). Shiloh, a farming community on Shiloh Road in north central Gregg County just south of the Upshur county line, was established after the Civil War by people held captive by Gideon Christian. Gideon enslaved thirty-two people-eighteen men and fourteen women. According to the oral histories of local families, the Christian family conveyed land titles to a number of emancipated slaves. The Shiloh Baptist Church, founded in 1871, served as the focal point of the community. After World War II, the community declined, and in the early 1990s, only a church and scattered dwellings remained at the site. At that time, descendants of the original settlers still lived in the area.
The community is best understood through its landscape and institutions. The newly freed African Americans of the Shiloh community established a school for their children shortly after the Civil War. The one-room building was demolished in the late 1800s, and classes were held at the Shiloh Baptist Church. With financial assistance from the Julius Rosenwald fund, a new two-room school was erected in 1920. A large brick building in the 1930s replaced it. The high school was closed in 1949; the end of segregation closed the rest of the Shiloh School in 1966. Long vacant, the school building was later used to store chemicals for a plastics company and burned in 1993. (1998).
“According to local tradition,” Butcher Christian and noted post-Civil War church organizer, the Rev. John Baptist, established Shiloh Baptist church in 1871. Services began in a log sanctuary located on 3 acres donated by Butcher Christian. A school for African Americans operated there until about the 1890s. An adjacent cemetery, with marked graves dating to 1882, is still active. Revenues from oil discovered on church land were used to build a new sanctuary here in 1936. Shiloh Baptist serves the community with a variety of programs.
Community History: There are no current community descriptions of Shiloh. Please consider sharing your own knowledge of the community with us.
Cemetery: Shiloh Baptist Church Cemetery
Church: Shiloh Baptist Church