St. John lUTHERAN

ST. JOHN LUTHERAN CHURCH was dedicated in 1925, but the foundations of the church quite literally run deeper. The congregation of St. John was founded in 1860, and in just thirteen years, the congregation grew enough to necessitate a new brick building. Plans were made for a church 42 feet wide by 87 feet long, with a projecting tower and steeple reaching 100 feet. St. John was completed in 1873, with a subsequent addition in 1905 of a wing of extra seating and a loft to the south side of the nave just beyond the arcade.

After a devastating fire in 1924, the church was restored by Mr. John Riedel, a Lutheran architect from Fort Wayne who ran his own successful practice from 1889 to 1949. Mr. Riedel rebuilt the church on the existing foundation of the damaged building, making use of the surviving walls and tower at a cost of $70,000. While today it is supported with additional steel beams and columns, those charred beams and crumbling masonry are still visible in the basement of the church. The steeple was never replaced, leaving instead a jagged-tooth edge at the top of the belltower. A vestibule was added around the front of the tower as well, significantly changing the appearance of the front façade.

Inside the church, painted plaster arches rest on dark wooden compound piers, creating depth and interest in a nave that is otherwise a simple rectangle. A gracefully curving organ loft extends outward into the space. The palette of red carpet, dark wood, and cream-colored plaster is warm and inviting, and seems as stately now as it did a hundred years ago.

This historic documentation thoroughly recorded the building through a combination of measured drawings and CAD documentation, followed by hand-rendered presentation drawings.