Hopewell Baptist Church was organized on August 2, 1866, by ten charter members: Emily Meador, Thomas Meador, Elizabeth Ann Meador, John M. Tate, Mary Tate, Eleanor D. Bright, Eleanor Crabb Bright, Sarah McDonnell, the Rev. Hardeman Royster Puryear, and Caroline Adams Puryear. Its first worship service was a protracted meeting of several days during which 15 new members joined, and the Rev. Mr. Puryear became the first pastor. The congregation bought three acres of land in the summer of 1867, and by November 1868 completed its first sanctuary near the present Hopewell Cemetery, where it served for four decades. After the townsite of Navarro was laid out along the Trinity and Brazos Valley Rail Line, the congregation voted to relocate, and the church building was moved in 1907. As the community's only church, it continued over the years, and after a 1939 wind storm damaged the sanctuary, it was rebuilt near the original site.