Historical Marker at the Blue
Ridge Baptist Church
Blue Ridge Baptist Church




Blue Ridge, Texas is located about seven miles west of
Kosse on Farm Road 1771 in eastern Falls County.  
Blue Ridge takes its name from a series of low hills in
the area.

In 1850 residents of the community objected to the
boundaries of the new Falls County.  They thought the
Brazos River should form the western county line and
the Navasota River should form the eastern one. They
also wanted Blue Ridge to be the county seat. But they
succeeded only in delaying the organization of the .
county until the following year, and Marlin became the
county seat for Falls County.

A post office was established at Blue Ridge in 1854 but
was discontinued in 1857. The death knell for the growth
of Blue Ridge involved the railroads. This was the case
with many of our local communities. The railroads that
built through eastern Falls County in the early 1870s
bypassed Blue Ridge, eliminating any chance it had of
developing as a commercial center. This phenomena
would repeat itself a century later with many towns who
found themselves bypassed by the interstate system.

Part of the widely dispersed community was known as
Harlanville for a number of years, but to this day it is
referred to by locals as Blue Ridge.
A few scattered houses marked the community's location on county highway maps in
the late 1940s, but only one business remained on maps in the 1980s. Today Blue
Ridge has only a few houses and a church/cemetary remaining but  it is still a very
scenic area. The Blue Ridge Baptist Church sponsors an annual May Day Singing
each year which draws a large crowd of people with roots and ancestors from the
Blue Ridge community.  As the picture above shows, the Blue Ridge Baptist Church
remains an impressive 19th-century-era structure to this day.  

This article was written with information garnered from the Handbook of Texas Online.
 Photos compliments of www.forttumbleweed.com
Blue Ridge, Texas