The Lutherans were slow to organize in the Honey Lake Valley. On August 29, 1896, Pastor J.H. Theiss held the first Lutheran service in. Janesville. Like many other religious denominations the minister would ride a circuit so services initially were sporadic. In 1904, the St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church was established at Janesville. Its initial charter members were Dan Dieter, Sr., William Hoffman, Fred Dieter, George Dieter and Dan Dieter Jr. On July 28, 1907, the Reverand F.G. Gundlach arrived to dedicate to their church located on the Standish-Buntingville Road (A-3) near Sears Road.
During the early years many of the sermons and hymns were in German. By the early 1920s services were also held in Susanville at Fruit Growers Story Club. By 1930, the Janesville church was abandoned, though in 1941 a church was built on the corner of Ash and First Streets in Susanville.
Tim
Thanks for the photo Tim. I have lots of research on the Dieter family, and there are some anecdotal remarks in a book (The Romance of Lutheranism in California, pg. 139) that has a description of Pastor Thiess’s trip through the area. They left Milwaukee in about 1889 in part because the eldest son Fred was ill, enough so that he dropped out of Lutheran Seminary. I was never quite sure why they wound up in Buntingville / Janesville, other than for health reasons and perhaps because Dan Sr.’s aunt Sophia Schmitt (Smith) nee Heil ran the Smith Hotel in Susanville. Thanks again.
My grandparents got married in the parsonage of the Lutheran Church in Janesville in 1919. Are there any pictures of this early church?