Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 1904-1952

The church went to Rosemont, a town made for this neighborhood. Webster County's 2003 historic buildings survey says Rosemont was established in 1890 as a grain and livestock shipping point on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad and a trading center for the German farmers of the county's northeast, with Claas Rose, a German immigrant who came in 1880, behind its town and businesses. The graveled State Highway 4 of 1933-34 sent shoppers on to Blue Hill and Lawrence. The survey found Rosemont's two remaining churches had both been moved into town during the 1950s.

What the plaque says

Emmanuel Lutheran Church 1904-1952 Three German Lutheran congregations, Zion, Salem, and Emmanuel, built churches in Stillwater Precinct, Webster County, Nebraska. Emmanuel was the last to build and the last to disband. Emmanuel Lutheran Church was formally dedicated on this site, July 16, 1905. Services were conducted in German in the morning, and in English that afternoon. Worship in both languages continued, with German being used less frequently in later years. The first recorded activity in the church records was the baptism of August Friedrich Blobaum, March 13, 1904. The last recorded service was February 2, 1952, with Communion being received by Augusta Degener, Corrine Degener, Frank Degener, John F. Degener, Robert D. Degener, Anna Scheiding, Edwin Scheiding, Clarence Schutte, Harold Schutte, Emma Stumpenhorst, William Stumpenhorst, and Fred Sundermeir. The Emmanuel Lutheran Church was an inspiring structure in its day with its Christian cross, atop a sixty-foot steeple, rising above the prairie farmlands. In 1952 the building was moved to Rosemont to serve another congregation. The cemetery remains as Emmanuel's legacy to the Stillwater community. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Willa Cather Center — 11 mi
  The restored Moon Block on Red Cloud's Webster Street, home of the Willa Cather Foundation, with the town she grew up in and wrote about laid out around it.
• Willa Cather Memorial Prairie — 16 mi
  Six hundred and twelve acres of never-plowed mixed-grass prairie south of Red Cloud, once Kitkehahki Pawnee country, named for the writer who said the grass was the country.

More markers nearby

• Cowles Consolidated School — 4.6 mi
• Republican Pawnee Village — 9.3 mi
• Catherland — 9.7 mi
• Grace Episcopal Church — 11 mi