St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church and Cemetery Historic District

About this property

St. Joseph's Catholic Church is a former parish of the Diocese of Davenport. The church is located in Dallas township in rural Marion County, Iowa, United States. It was part of the now defunct village of Bauer. The closest communities are Melcher-Dallas and Lacona. The church building still stands and together with the adjacent cemetery comprises an historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. St. Joseph's was founded in 1853 to serve German immigrants in a place in western Marion County called Newbern, or New Bern. The unincorporated village that was built around the church was later called Bauer after the family name of the area's earliest German settlers. The parish was founded in the Diocese of Dubuque during the episcopate of Bishop Mathias Loras. The church building was built in 1876 under the leadership of Bishop John Hennessy. Initially, the parish did not have a resident priest and was served by priests located at St. Patrick’s in Georgetown. Its first two church buildings were log structures that were built on the same property of the present church. The Rev. John Baumann was assigned as the first resident parish priest. The first rectory was built in 1873. Baumann blessed the cornerstone for the present church on October 3, 1875, and the Rev. S. Cann preached a sermon. Limestone, which is abundant in this area, was from a quarry located southeast of the church and used for the foundation. The clay for the bricks was excavated from the property, and the bricks were formed and fired on site under the direction of parishioner Jacob Metz. Other members of the parish built the building. The finished church building was dedicated in 1876. Shortly after the church was built Father Wieland replaced Baumann as pastor. The high altar and the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary were created by Buscher & Kramer and installed in 1880. The Saint Joseph altar was installed sometime later. The pews were installed the following year, as were the bells in the tower. The bells were produced by J. G. Struckstede and Brother of St. Louis, Missouri. Bells are dedicated to the honor of the saints (Ad Honorem Sts.) and St. Joseph (Sancta Joseph). In 1881 the parish became part of the Davenport Diocese when it was established. A reed organ built by the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vermont was installed around 1900. The plaster Stations of the Cross were added in 1916. Other parishes were founded from Bauer in Melcher, Knoxville, Rose Mount, and Lacona. German remained the language used for sermons and church services, when Latin was not required, until March 1913 during the pastorate of the Rev. Charles Dohrmann. The younger members of the parish had insisted up until that time that at least some of the sermons be preached in English. That same year a new rectory was built across the road from the church. It is a 2½-story, frame, American Foursquare dwelling. As the 20th century progressed the German population at Bauer became more aligned with the mainstream American culture and the influence of ethnic traditions was reduced. As the numbers of clergy started to decline, St. Joseph’s lost its resident priest in 1969 and it was clustered with other parishes. The rectory was sold in 1972 and remains in place as a private home. The number of parishioners declined as well and the parish was closed in the 1990s.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Marion County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Marion County.

More historic places in Iowa

Browse all historic places in Iowa.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Iowa history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.