Stockholm Lutheran Church and Swedish Cemetery

Moline, Illinois, sent the founders: Swedish immigrants from there organized the congregation in 1875, and its first full-time pastor came in 1883. The 1900 church was designed by N. K. Aldrich of Galesburg after plans by Swedish-American architect Olaf Cervin of Rock Island, with A. A. Gustafson of Funk as builder. Its tower holds the original 1,800-pound bell under a gilded cross 70 feet up, and Olof Grafstrom's painting Christ in Gethsemane hangs above the altar. Membership peaked at 367 in 1911. Vandals destroyed or stole many of the original pews in 1987.

What the plaque says

Stockholm Lutheran Church and Swedish Cemetery Stockholm Lutheran Church and Swedish Cemetery, located one mile south and one-half mile west of here, recall the Swedish-American heritage in Nebraska. In the early 1870s Swedish immigrants began settling in Bryant township, Fillmore County, concentrating between the present towns of Shickley and Ong. As the settlement grew, these pioneers considered the need for a church, organized a congregation in 1875, and purchased six acres of land, although meetings were held in a schoolhouse and members' homes until 1881, when the first church was built. In 1878 five acres were deeded to the Swedish Cemetery Association to provide a burial ground for the community. By 1900 the old church was too small to accommodate the people who came to worship services and social events. The present church, a thirty-six by sixty foot frame structure with Gothic Revival detailing, was constructed in that year at a cost of $3,549. The congregation continued to use the Swedish language occasionally for worship until 1937. Stockholm Lutheran Church and Swedish Cemetery were entered in the National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1995. Stockholm Church Shickley Community Foundation Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• 1871 Fillmore County 1971 — 11 mi
• The Soldiers' Monument — 14 mi
• The German Russians Come to Sutton — 14 mi
• Sutton — 14 mi