The First Baptist Church of Dalton was founded on November 29, 1847, in the village of Cross Plains.  One month later, Cross Plains became Dalton. 

The new church was founded less than 10 years after the Cherokee Indians had been removed in the Trail of Tears to their new home in Oklahoma.  It would be four more years before Whitfield County would be carved out of Murray County in 1851.

Before the formal organization of the church, a small band of Baptists met in a log chapel that served other denominations at the same time.  The log structure also served as the town hall and schoolhouse.  The structure was built by Emery Blount who had previously served as a missionary to the Cherokee Indians at the Brainerd Mission in Tennessee.  Upon the removal of the Cherokees, Blount moved to Dalton where he became the town's first mayor.

The church's first building was erected on the northwest corner of Selvidge and Waugh Streets (the current site of a Krystal restaurant).  The church built two more meeting hosues on that property before moving to the present location on North Thornton Avenue in 1959.  The six charter members of the church included the Reverend George Selvidge who was the church's first pastor and served from 1848 to 1853.

Among the accoutrements from the early church is the 1,700 pound rust-preventive silve ralloy bell in the present belltower.  It was given to the church in 1857 and has been moved back into the tower of each newly-constructured edifice.  During the Civil War, the bell was shipped to Macon for safekeeping, and was returned to Daltonin 1872.  Also handed down from the early churches were a communion set and communion table.  the communion set included a tall pitcher, two goblets, and four plates.  The table was a present to the church by former Governor and Senator Joseph E. Brown.  The stained-glass windows and the organ now in the chapel, and a chandelier made in Czechoslovakia, also came from the earlier structures.  These objects serve as reminders of the contributions of forebearers to our community and to us.

Forty-five pastors have served First Baptist Church since its beginning.