On Sunday, May 25, First Baptist Church of Gaston celebrated its 200th anniversary by unveiling a historic marker. 

The marker was approved by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, and tells the story of the church’s esteemed presence in the Gaston community for two centuries. 

The church was originally founded in 1824 under the name Sandy Run Baptist Church. The church began with 21 charter members (11 men and 10 women) who organized under the leadership of William Pauling, Jesse Hartwell and others. 

Around 1834, the congregation relocated to an area known as Oakey Springs, near the church’s current site, where they built a wooden frame church. The churchyard includes marked graves dating back to the 1860s.

In the 1880s, a third wooden building was constructed, and by the time Gaston was incorporated as a town in 1894, the church was a well-established presence in the area. A brick building was completed in 1939, when the church had 350 members. 

In 1955, the congregation officially changed its name to First Baptist Church of Gaston, and the current sanctuary, the fifth building in the church’s history, was built in 1985.