St. Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This property, once situated just outside Capitol Square at 106 East Peach Street (later 13th), was the original location of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church ("Die Deutsche Evangelish Lutherische Kirche"). Pastor Henry Merz (1842-1928), a missionary for the First Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Texas, organized the congregation in 1883 with 20 German families. They worshiped first in homes or stores and later borrowed the facilities of the First Presbyterian and Gethsemane Lutheran churches. The congregation acquired this lot in 1884. The cornerstone for the first church building was laid on December 21, 1884, and the new structure was dedicated with formal ceremonies on April 26, 1885. Designed in a modified Gothic style, the brick church building measured 36 feet by 58 feet and had a truncated bell tower. In 1929 St. Martin's congregation erected a more spacious sanctuary at 1400 Congress, and the original church building was converted into state offices. In 1959, as the Capitol complex expanded, both churches were razed and 13th street was closed to make way for state office buildings. St. Martin's moved to new facilities at 606 West 15th Street. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1883 Pastor Henry Merz gathered twenty German families in Austin to found a German Evangelical Lutheran congregation, part of the strong German-immigrant presence in central Texas. Worshiping first in homes and borrowed churches, they built a Gothic-influenced brick sanctuary here in 1884-85. The congregation later moved and grew into St. Martin's, and this original site was cleared as the state Capitol complex expanded in the 1950s.
Why it matters
The church traces how immigrant communities preserved language and faith in a new land, and how that heritage was steadily reshaped by a growing state capital.
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Related people
- · Henry Merz
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Swedish Central Methodist Church
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Organized in 1873 by the Rev. Carl Charnquist, Austin's Swedish Methodist congregation first built a sanctuary near Red River and 15th Street, then moved in 1898 into buildings left by the disbanded Central Methodist Church, adopting 'Central' into its own name. Sitting across from the Capitol grounds, its property was sold in 1956 for state office expansion, and the renamed Memorial Methodist Church relocated to northeast Austin.
Gethsemane Church
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Gethsemane was the first Lutheran church in Travis County, organized in 1868 by Swedish immigrants under the leadership of Swante Palm. The congregation raised this 1883 building using stone hauled by wheelbarrow from the Texas Capitol that had burned in 1881, and later fitted it with ornate doors salvaged from the University of Texas's Old Main. Its form echoes the rural churches of the Swedish homeland its founders had left behind.
Scholz Garten
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German immigrant August Scholz opened his hall on this site in 1866, and around the turn of the century the present building replaced the original. In 1908 the Austin Saengerrunde, a German singing society, bought the property and added an adjacent hall. Long a gathering place celebrated for its German heritage, Scholz Garten was honored by the Texas Legislature in 1966.
Site of Swedish Evangelical Free Church
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Swedish immigrants farming the Decker and Elroy communities east of Austin began worship services in 1889, formally founding a Swedish Evangelical Free congregation in 1892. Two such congregations merged in 1923, relocated into Austin, and built a church on this site in 1925, where services were held in Swedish until the 1930s. Renamed First Evangelical Free Church, the fellowship moved on in 1962 after selling the property to the State of Texas.