In 1898, Bartlett was a small farming community where Black American laborers arrived each fall for the cotton harvest. In June 1898, Thomas Sanders and Nelson Secret and their families called Reverend F. E. Garrett of Temple to help establish Mount Arie Missionary Baptist Church. Among the church's first families were those of Reverend W. M. Muckleroy, Wallace Dotray, and C. A. Harris. The small congregation originally met on the Bell County side of Bartlett, but by 1910 it had grown enough to move to Brook Street in Williamson County. The years 1921 and 1933 were lean ones. In 1953, the church building was moved to Bowie Street because of unstable land on its Brook Street site. The structure was modernized in the 1960s and 1970s, membership increased dramatically, and the congregation began to integrate after 1977. In 1980, during the church's eighth decade, the congregation moved into a new brick facility, and that same year the church name was changed to Mount Ararat Missionary Baptist Church after it was discovered that Mount Arie was an abbreviation for the name of the mountain on which Noah's Ark landed as depicted in the Old Testament. The congregation celebrated its centennial in June 1998, supports widespread missionary and outreach programs, and continues to grow in membership and diversity while carrying on the traditions of its founders.