Original Lutheran Church at Sabetha

The LCMS annual reports indicate that there was a Lutheran Church at Sabetha from somewhere in the 1880's until about 1908. For example, the 1898 Annual Report shows that Pastor H. D. Wagner served Fairview (St. Paul) with 94 members, Bern (St John) with 61 members and Sabetha (no name) with 19 members. There is a report showing the formation date of all churches in Kansas, source unknown, indicating that First, Sabetha was organized in 1880. It is not known whether the "First" refers to the name of the current active church in Sabetha or to an "Original" church in Sabetha, (i.e. First as opposed to second).

4/18/2008 - To date, nothing has been found to verify the existence of an earlier Lutheran church in Sabetha. The is nothing recorded on Andrea's History of Nemaha County, nor in Tennal's history of Nemaha County. A brief examination of old Sabetha Heralds does not revel any stories about a Lutheran church. I checked a Brown County plat map at the Kansas History Center and found nothing on 4/17/2008. Alvin Baumann, a long time resident of the Sabetha community has not information in such a church. I found a website for the Kloepfer family and found that telephone number for Bob Kleopfer (note spelling difference) and place a call to that number. Mrs Kleopfer indicated that she was unaware of an earlier Sabetha Lutheran church. She referred me to Milan Kloepfer in Fairview. I called him on 4/17/2008. He too had never heard of an earlier church and referred me to a Mark Newlin in Sabetha that writes articles for the newspaper about cemeteries in Brown County. He had never heard of an earlier Lutheran Church in Sabetha.

Dean Landman
District Archivist/Historian