St. Paul Lutheran Church

Language kept Texas Lutherans apart for decades. The Handbook of Texas says language barriers and European backgrounds separated the immigrant Lutheran groups, and that the common use of English later made cooperation easier. By the 1970s worship in languages other than English had become rare outside the Rio Grande valley. By 1969 Lutherans were the fourth-largest church in Texas, after Catholics, Baptists and Methodists. The plaque's change here from German to English, completed in the mid-1940s apart from one German Sunday a month, belongs to that slow pattern.

What the plaque says

St. Paul Lutheran Church In 1921, German-speaking settlers living between Crawford and McGregor came together to found a new Lutheran church to serve their spiritual needs. The community met at Wasp Creek School and organized a congregation, named Peace Lutheran Church. On July 25 of that year, H.W. Englebrecht sold two acres of land to be the location of the new church building. The building was dedicated on October 30 of the same year, and two months later, the church called its first pastor, August Beteit (1879-1967), who served until 1932. Beteit simultaneously served St. John's Church in Coryell City, Coryell County. For several decades, the church held German language services semi-monthly. In the mid-1940s, regular services were increased to every Sunday and the language of worship changed to English, except every third Sunday, which remained in German. In October 1947, the church voted to move the congregation to three acres in Crawford purchased from G.H. Kelling. The same year, another vote changed the name of the church to St. Paul Lutheran Church. The church building was moved in its entirety to its new location on Prairie Chapel Road. The congregation grew at the new site, and several building projects, including additions to the structure and new structures, were undertaken, with all work being done by members of the congregation. The growth necessitated a new sanctuary, which was dedicated in early 1964. The church continued to be a gathering place, implementing youth programs and expanding meeting areas. From humble beginnings, St. Paul has continued to enrich the Crawford area for over a century. (2023)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 14 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 17 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Bosque Museum — 19 mi
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 19 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Crawford Schools — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Crawford — 0.2 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Crawford — 0.3 mi
• Crawford — 0.4 mi