St. Peter Lutheran Church and Prairie Valley Cemetery
West Point, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Sixteen families led by the Rev. R. Osthoff organized this church in 1896. The congregation met at the schoolhouse and Knights of Honor Lodge. Dietrich Hermann Wessels donated two acres for a church and cemetery across the road from the lodge hall in 1900. The first burial was that of Heinrich Georg Wessels in 1900. The St. Petri congregation was recognized by the Missouri Synod in January 1901; the church building was completed in February. Most of the grave inscriptions before the 1930s are in German. Church services were held in German until 1935. Burials in the cemetery are almost all those of church members, including the charter families. With about seventy members and more than 121 graves, both church and cemetery remain active. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sixteen families led by the Rev. R. Osthoff organized St. Peter Lutheran Church in 1896, meeting first in a schoolhouse and lodge hall before Dietrich Hermann Wessels donated land for a church and cemetery in 1900. Recognized by the Missouri Synod in 1901, the congregation worshiped in German until 1935, and its earliest gravestones carry German inscriptions. Both church and burial ground remain active more than a century on.
Why it matters
This church and its Prairie Valley graveyard preserve the tight-knit German Lutheran world that took root across Central Texas, keeping its language and faith alive well into the twentieth century.
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Related people
- · R. Osthoff
- · Dietrich Hermann Wessels
Themes & tags
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