John Lutheran Church, Bartlett, Texas, are traced to the formation of a school built by German settlers in the area in 1880. Mr. John T Bartlett (namesake for the city of Bartlett) donated land to area German settlers for "school and church purposes". The German-English school also served as the worship-site for St. John Lutheran Church, which was organized December 16, 1883 (one week after the fo
unding of the University of Texas and five years prior to the construction of the current Texas State Capitol. German missionary pastors Heinrich G. Merz, Immanuel Glatzle, and others who initially served St. John in the late 1800's, were trained at St. Chrishona Pilgrim Institute, Basel, Switzerland. The first congregational parsonage was built in 1884. Fire destroyed this building on August 31, 1922, resulting in the loss of all early congregational records. The original 1896 frame sanctuary (sixty by eighty feet) was replaced in 1932 by the current $42,500 brick church designed for a seating capacity of 500. Mules and scrapers were used to excavate the basement for the new edifice. Waco architect Birch D. Easterwood flew his perosonal plane regularly to the construction site to inspect progress. The altar in the current sanctuary came from the originial 1896 church; it was dedicated November 18, 1916, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation. The marble baptismal font is said to have been dedicated during the same time-period. August 12, 1951 marked the dedication of a 1,217 pipe organ (designed and rebuilt by Mr. Otto Hofmann of Kyle, Texas). The organ was probably the first instrument in Texas to be rebuilt according to classical European organ design. On August 15, 1976, the W.C. and Alma Teinert Recreation Center was dedicated.
