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J. Frank Norris was born in Dadeville, Alabama, but the family shortly moved to Arkansas and then back to Columbiana, Alabama. In the late 1880s, the Norrises bought land near Hubbard, Texas, about thirty miles from Waco, where they farmed.[1] James Warner Norris was an alcoholic, and Frank Norris claimed that his father once severely injured him after he had emptied his liquor bottles. In 1891, both were shot by an acquaintance of Warner Norris, and Frank said he did not fully recuperate for three years.[2]
J. Frank Norris is considered the first broadcast evangelist. He was one of the first preachers to recognize radio as a tool to spread the gospel. In 1925, he established his own radio station in the church. The call letters were KFQB which stood for "Keep Folks Quoting the Bible ". Large radio towers were erected on the roof of First Baptist Church right in the heart of downtown Fort Worth.
Novelist Sinclair Lewis went out of his way to hear Dr. Norris at First Baptist when on a trip to the southwest in the mid-1920's. He told a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "What did I do this morning? I satisfied a desire of a great many years standing--I went to hear Dr. J. Frank Norris preach. I admire the eloquence and vigor of Dr. Norris and have wanted to hear him. I have never seen before so many people at church at once.
J. Frank Norris was known as "the fighting fundamentalisth". He was constantly crusading for the fundamentals of Christianity against modernism. He seemed, in some ways, predestined to take a major role in such battles. His father was a drunkard and his mother was a devout Christian. From the lesson of his father's sad state and the tragedies of family life that attended the alcoholic binges, he developed a passionate hatred for alcohol. From his mother, he inherited a deep love for God.
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