This Week in Odessa History

Country churches were to be found every few miles throughout the countryside in the early day Odessa area. Usually they were served by itinerant ministers, who either traveled by horseback or by wagon to where their several congregations. Often it was two or three weeks, sometimes six weeks, before the pastor could make the rounds.

The Emmanuel Lutheran church, five miles south of Lauer, was one of the early churches of Odessa rural area. But just as the trend was way from the country churches as these congregations consolidated with like denominations in Odessa, Emmanuel Lutheran built a new...