The Odessa Record -

In 1883, August Bursch, Ludwig Hoffman and Gottlieb Mielke came to the Zion district without their families and established themselves sufficiently to summon their families in Minnesota anxiously awaiting the call to come west. In October, the families were reunited, and church services were held in the homes until the following summer.

The edifice now known as the Zion Rocklyn United Methodist Church was the first organized church in Harrington when Rev. Adam Buehler was assigned on June 15, 1884, to the small flock of Germans homesteading in that region, about seven miles northwest of Ha...