Our History:

Devol Baptist Church was organized in 1908. In May 1908, a group of 10 people, among whom were Mrs. John (Emma) Wright, Mrs. Emory (Maggie) Wright, Mrs. Will (Una) Wright, Ellen Embree, Ed Traylor, Mrs. (Lila) Traylor and Mrs. T.C. (Mae) Dillow, met to organize a church. They met in the home of the Claude B. Tatum family, because it was the largest building yet completed in the newly opened Big Pasture settlement. It made no difference that the Tatums were not Baptists, their home was always open for large gatherings.

The church was originally named the Hopewell Baptist Church. That name held for two years until the new building was completed. It then became First Baptist Church. It did not have the name of Devol in its title in 1908 because Devol had not yet been organized as a town.

When Col. Jehial Fiske Devol, a retired GAR veteran, subdivided his homestead and formed the town named after -him, he offered any church that would build in the town a free lot for the church and its parsonage. In 1910, a movement to build the building for Hopewell got under way. Everyone in the community, regardless of church affiliation, helped construct the building. They hauled lumber by wagon from the nearby government town of Eschiti. It officially opened a First Baptist Church of Devol on February 10, 1910, with the Rev. T.H. Teel as its pastor.