{"nrhp_refnum":"83003137","name":"St. John the Baptist Catholic Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"FM 1383","address_restricted":false,"city":"Ammansville","county":"Fayette County","state":"TX","lat":29.786986354000078,"lon":-96.85867102399999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-06-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Carpenter Gothic wooden church on FM Road 1383 in Ammansville, Fayette County, Texas, built in 1917-1919 by architect and builder John F. Bujnoch for a Czech Catholic congregation.","why_significant":"The church is presented as a good example of early 20th-century Carpenter Gothic architecture and a visual monument to the Czech pioneers who settled around Ammansville. It is also distinguished by its unusual vaulted ceiling and by ornamental interior painting that the form attributes to skilled professional artists.","narrative":"St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is a Gothic Revival wooden church on FM Road 1383 in rural Ammansville, Fayette County. It has a steeply gabled rectangular form, a polygonal apse at the east end, and a tall bell tower with an octagonal spire over the central west entrance. Buttresses, lancet windows and trefoil details carry the Gothic theme. John Bujnoch served as both architect and builder. It is the third church on the site, after a frame church destroyed by a hurricane in 1909 and a larger one lost to fire in 1917. The congregation, made up of Czech settlers who followed Andrew Ammann to the area in 1879, dedicated this church in December 1919. Its interior is the main distinction: a high-pointed vault rises from two lower coved vaults, and the walls and ceiling carry stenciled, freehand and marbled decoration in warm pink, blue-green and white. The building is valued as a Carpenter Gothic landmark and a monument to the immigrant community.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"John F. Bujnoch (architect and builder)","architectural_style":"Gothic Revival / Carpenter Gothic","criteria":[],"status_note":"Covered with asbestos siding; the original wood siding is assumed to be intact beneath it.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:19.179224-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/48/9691/40969148/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/83003137.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83003137/f760670b84-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83003137/f760670b84-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"Larry D. Moore","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_john_the_baptist_ammannsville_2012.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Larry D. Moore</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_john_the_baptist_ammannsville_2012.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40969148","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Baptist_Catholic_Church_(Ammannsville,_Texas)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7588945"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/fayette-county/st-john-the-baptist-catholic-church-83003137/"}