First Baptist Church of La Junta 7 E. 5th St.

The First Baptist Church of La Junta was officially organized on December 15, 1888. An advertisement of the La Junta Town Company in an Ohio newspaper caught the attention of Rev. Charles Davis, who came to La Junta and served the congregation under the joint employment of the local church and the American Baptist Home Mission Society in New York State. 

Before the church had their own permananet house of worship, the charter congregation of nineteen met at the Methodist Episcopal Church at 4th Street and Santa Fe Avenue, the library, opera house, and other locations. In 1891, the congregation bought the lots near the corner of 5th Street and Colorado Avenue with the assistance of the Home Mission Society and erected a frame church that same year. As the church grew the 1891 building was inadequate and Rev. Murdock began a fund for construction of a new church as early as 1905. 

In 1910, the frame church was jacked up and moved to the south west corner of Santa Fe Avenue and Nineth Street where services where held while the new church was being constructed. The cost of this new site and moving the frame church was donated by Mr. T.T. Woodruff. 

Excavation of the foundation started in November 1910, before the architectural plans were finalized in early 1911. The dirt that was removed for the foundation was used to fill flower beds in the new city park on 10th Street. Due to lack of funding, the church progressed slowly in completing the building, taking nearly three years to complete and furnish it. 

By August 10, 1913, the church held its last service in the relocated 1891 frame church building. Then in December 1913, a dedication week was held in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the church's organization. Along with lectures and sermons, George A. Kilgore, one of the few remaining charter members of the church and its unofficial historian, presented a history of the church. 

The church held La Junta's first Japanese wedding, when Seijiro Ogino and Sumiko Takumi of Rocky Ford were married there on July 29, 1914. Over the decades, the church has hosted regular events open to its congregation and the community.