Cook Springs Baptist Church

Baptists organized here in 1901 and held services at the Guinea Glade School (about 2 mi. NW). Brother Elisha E. Day (1848-1936), pastor of the Woodville Church (about 10 mi. SW), helped establish the congregation and conducted its first services. Charter members included Mr. and Mrs. Jim Cauthen, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Petree, Mr. and Mrs. John L. Petree, Mrs. Mary Petree, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Petree, Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Tharp, and Miss Ruth Tharp. Mrs. Sarah Brown Gaines, wife of Toliver L. Gaines, organized the Sunday School. In 1903 Mrs. Scisely Wells Cook Rose (1830-1912), also a charter member, gave this spring-fed site for a church building. She asked that the church be named for her late husband, John William Cook, who died in 1864 in the Civil War. Records date from 1907, when Deacon Edwin Harris Tharp (1849-1922) was church clerk and C. W. Matthews was the first called pastor listed. By 1912 a wooden sanctuary was completed. Services were held one weekend per month, Saturday night and Sunday morning. A new building was dedicated in 1945, assembled and furnished largely by the labors of the congregation. Many additions indicate the growth of the church, yet the original spring survives, occupying a revered site.