Today, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Schubert is celebrating its 150/175th anniversary. Worship is at 10 a.m., with lunch and fellowship following. At 2 p.m. there will be a special anniversary service and a reception.
St. John’s Lutheran Church was founded in 1844 and organized in 1869. The original church was located along the Osage River as the Osage Point Lutheran Church. It was a log church with a cemetery on 22 acres of land.
The Osage Point Lutheran Church was actually the second Lutheran Church in Cole County. Zion Lutheran Church was the first, having organized in July 1843. As the mother Lutheran church in Cole County, Zion Church contributed to the growth of Lutheran churches at Stringtown/Lohman in 1852, Honey Creek and Jefferson City.
Zion Church still stands today off Route C and Zion Road, but few people know this was the Lutheran mother church.
Early Lutheran congregations were served by transient Lutheran ministers from the Lutheran seminary in Perry, County, Missouri, and German Evangelical and Reform pastors.
The first permanent pastor was the Rev. John Paul Kalb, who was sent to Central Missouri in 1848 by the newly formed Missouri Synod. Kalb served Zion, Osage Point, and established St. Paul Lutheran Church in Stringtown in 1852.
In the 1850s, St. Paul Lutheran Church left the Missouri Synod and chose to become a part of the Iowa Lutheran Synod. They had also outgrown their original log church, and in 1872 built a new brick church, keeping the old building as a Lutheran school.
Some in the congregation were not happy with St. Paul’s decision to leave the Missouri Synod. They broke away and created a new church, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Stringtown in 1867. During this same time, Immanuel Lutheran was founded in Centertown. In 1870, Immanuel Lutheran Church at Honey Creek was established with the Rev. Conrad Vetter as its pastor. Trinity Lutheran Church in Jefferson City was formed under the leadership of Pastor Carl Therow. Parochial education was important to the Lutherans, so schools were also a part of these churches. Vetter also organized St. John’s Lutheran Church in Babbtown in 1871.
Two of these early Lutheran churches in Cole County are no more today. Immanuel Lutheran Church in Centertown closed in the 1930s, and Zion Lutheran Church, the mother church, celebrated its last religious services on Oct. 26, 1975. New churches are still forming though. In 1950, Faith Lutheran Church in Jefferson City was organized, and in 1954, the school was added.
Returning to St. John’s Lutheran Church: The church, which is celebrating its anniversary today, has a wonderful history. Osage Point Lutheran Church was its first church built on Lisletown Road at the ferry on the Osage River in 1844. One of its earliest members was Lorenz Schubert, who had come to this area in 1842 from Baveria. He sold some of his farmland to the trustees for $5 to create the Osage Point Lutheran Church. In 1866, the congregation voted to literally move their church closer to Jefferson City, to St. Louis Road. The original log church was moved to 5 acres at this new site.
In 1869, St. John’s received its first permanent pastor, the Rev. Rudolf A. Pfister. A new church, along with a parsonage, was built in 1871, and the original church became a parochial school.
During this time, Henry Schubert opened a general merchandise store next to the church and a community grew up around St. John’s Lutheran Church. Schubert, named after its store and post office, included a blacksmith (later an automobile garage), a cafe, a barbershop and the famous Palace Inn.
Unfortunately, the automobile and progress led to the demise of the Village of Schubert. Today, only St. John’s Lutheran Church, its cemetery and parsonage are all that remain.
We often drive by this beautiful Christmas-card church, but today, join Pastor Gerald Scheperle and his congregation in celebrating the anniversary of one of the oldest churches in Cole County. I’ll be there too!
Sources: The Rev. Gerald Scheperle and “Heartland History,” by Gary Kremer.
Sam Bushman is the presiding commissioner on the Cole County Commission. He shares his perspective each month on county issues. He can be reached at [email protected].