Shiloh, Gregg County, Texas

[1] Located just south of the Upshur County line, Shiloh was established by formerly enslaved African Americans just after the end of the Civil War.

[2] According to local tradition, a formerly enslaved man, Butcher Christian, his former enslaver, Gideon Christian, and a noted post-Civil War church organizer, the Reverend John Baptist, established the Shiloh Baptist Church in 1871.

Gideon Christian, originally from South Carolina, had held thirty-two people enslaved in the area prior to the Civil War.

[3] Beginning in the 1930s, an oil boom was the major driver of Gregg County's economy and population growth.

[2] Revenue from oil discovered on the Shiloh Baptist Church land was used to build a new sanctuary on the site in 1936.