The St. Paul Lutheran Church on Juddville Road (1975). (Courtesy of Nancy Hoffmann)

The only church in Juddville that has had its own physical church building is the St. Paul Lutheran Church. Prior to the church being established, visiting pastors would perform services every fourth or fifth week in the Juddville schoolhouse.  Then on January 26, 1886, local families met in the schoolhouse to establish a new Lutheran congregation they named “St. Paul Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church”.

The initial officers of the church were: Rev. John Olson, Henry Olson, Otto Anderson and Ole Haltug.

The new congregation continued to use the schoolhouse as its primary location in its early years. Then on January 6, 1898, a meeting was held to discuss the building of a new church building. The cornerstone for the new church was laid two years later on May 11, 1900 during a a service conducted by Reverend J.C. Reinertson. The land for the new church was donated by one of its original officers, Otto Anderson.

Many of the construction materials used for the new church were donated by parishioners. However, $539 in purchases were required to build the church. The Ladies Aid group of the congregation raised funds to provide $321 of the money needed for the construction.

Reverand Juvland conducted the first services in the new church on April 12, 1903.

In 1917, the church was conducting alternating services in English and Norwegian. The congregation was comprised of Norwegians, Swedes and Germans and numbered about 75 people. The value of the church property at that time was $2,000.

The church was somewhat inactive during the 1920’s and early 1930’s mostly due to not being able to secure a full-time pastor. In 1931, the name of the church was shortened, the requirement that pastors were required to speak Norwegian was rescinded, and the church’s constitution was translated into English.

In 1958, the church remodeled what had been the Juddville schoolhouse which was no longer being used by the community for educating nearby school children. The church converted the schoolhouse into a “Memorial Center” which was used for Sunday school, meetings, and other church and community events. Today, the schoolhouse building is the home for the Juddville Contemporary Clay Studio Gallery.

The St. Paul Lutheran Church in Juddville is still active today with recent improvements having been made to the church and its property. 

(Source: Holand, Hjalmar R. “22. History of Door County Churches”. History of Door County Wisconsin, The County Beautiful” Vol I, William Caxton Ltd,1917, p. 210)

(Source: Historical information originally made available at http://www.stpaulslutheranjuddville.org/main/history.pl a previously existing website for St. Paul Lutheran Church)