Zion Lutheran Church in Wausau added to State Register of Historic Places
WAUSAU – Zion Lutheran Church has been added to the State Register of Historic Places, according to a news release from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The church, completed in 1953 at 709 N. Sixth St., is built in a Late Gothic Revival style and its exterior is covered in Stevens Point sandstone and Indiana limestone. Visible aspects of style are seen in its “steeply-pitched roofs, pointed-arch windows and doors and modest buttresses,” according to the release.
The church’s roots in the community extend back to 1874 when it was first established and its first wood-framed church was built on the northeast corner of Seymour and Plumer streets, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. In 1882, a parsonage was built north of the wood-framed church and in 1884 a Gothic-style brick church was also completed nearby that allowed the wood-framed building to be converted into a school. In 1892, both the wood-framed building and the parsonage burned down and a new brick parsonage was built at 508 N. Fifth St., but this building no longer exists.
The church utilized the 1884 building until the completion of the current Zion Lutheran Church building. Frank Abrahamson, of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Orville Madsen, of Minneapolis, were hired as the architect and the contractor, respectively. They broke ground on Oct. 21, 1951, and laid the cornerstone on April 20, 1952. Dedication services were not held until March 15, 1953. The Historical Society record does not mention what happened to the 1884 Gothic-style building.
Another notable feature of Zion Lutheran Church is its four stained-glass windows built by Erhard Stoettner of T.C. Esser Studios in Milwaukee. Stoettner was a German master craftsman who lived from September 1899 to January 1992 and designed windows for a number of churches in the Midwest including the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and Lake Park Lutheran Church, both in Milwaukee, and Peace Lutheran Church in Oshkosh. He also helped in the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Rheims after it was severely damaged during World War I.
Zion Lutheran Church also has “handmade ceramic floor tile, wooden roof trusses, wooden ceiling beams and a significant amount of original wooden church furniture produced by the Ossit Church Furniture Company of Janesville, Wisconsin,” according to the release.
The church was identified in a 2017-18 survey of historical and architectural resources in Wausau, which was funded by the National Park Service. It was noted to be the last building built in Wausau in the Late Gothic Revival style. This style, which gained popularity in England toward the end of the 1600s had begun to fall out of favor around the turn of the 20th century.
The State Register of Historic Places lists 69 places built with Late Gothic Revival-style elements. The nearest include Schofield School built in 1923 at 1310 S. Grand Ave. in Schofield, the former First Presbyterian Church built in 1924 at 208 S. Chestnut Ave. in Marshfield and Willard D. Purdy Junior High School built in 1919 at 110 W. First St. in Marshfield and named after a local soldier who died in World War I.
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Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA-TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Reach him at epfantz@gannett.com or connect with him on Twitter @ErikPfantz.
This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: Zion Lutheran Church Wausau added to State Register of Historic Places
