Citra First Baptist Church

It is said that "every institution is but the lengthened shadow of a man". For the Citra First Baptist Church that man was Mr. H.B Stevens. In December of 1876, Mr. Stevens brought his bride to a two-room cabin on a four-acre site. At that time Florida was sparsely settled and Baptist were few and far between.

In 1880 Baptist friends of Mr. Stevens in the North contributed financially and soon a meeting house with an adjacent parsonage was provided. The original church building consisted of one room with three windows on each side, and seated about 100 people. By 1893 the membership had outgrown the original building so a new house of worship was erected which forms the main part of the present edifice. The new house of worship contained a baptistery, an unheard of innovation as that time. The architecture of the church is a nostalgic reminder of a by-gone era of the Old South. The two-story five-room parsonage had a stable for horse and carriage. This was furnished for the pastor, plus $600 per year as salary. This was much more than most churches provided at that time. Other contributions were vegetables, feed for the pastor's horse, firewood for the stove, meat, eggs, cornmeal, potatoes, cane syrup, and other farm products. so the Pastor was pretty well looked after by his flock.

It is a pretty church in an area not known for architectural elegance.