A delegation representing the American Baptist Free Mission Society of Boston, an interracial antislavery group, founded the First Union Free Mission Baptist Church in 1870. It was the first church in Texas that the society organized. The Rev. Benjamin J. Hall, who served as pastor from 1878 to 1914, earned praise for his efforts to rebuild the sanctuary after the 1900 Storm and for enhancing the church’s role as the mother church of the Texas State Convention. The present structure was erected in 1955.