St. John Lutheran — Lindenau

St. John Lutheran Church at Lindenau was organized on August 10, 1902, when area citizens interested in forming a Lutheran congregation met with the Rev. W.B. Utesch of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Cuero. The first services were held in the homes of John Arndt, Henry Duevel, and Peter Roggenkamp, and later at the Lindenau schoolhouse — Pastor Utesch conducted two Sunday evening services a month for a salary of seventy-five dollars a year.

In 1905 the congregation purchased five acres of land, a portion of which became the Lindenau Community Cemetery, dedicated that November. The church building itself — thirty-two by forty-eight feet, with a sixty-five-foot steeple — was completed and dedicated on October 12, 1913, built by the Caruther and Anderson Company of Yorktown for $2,200.

Worship services were conducted in the German language until 1955, and the beautiful altar, pulpit, lectern, and stained glass windows installed between 1927 and 1929 still grace the sanctuary today. On August 11, 2002, St. John Lindenau celebrated one hundred years together with Christ.