There were four Congregational Churches in the Fairfax community during the early years of this community’s history.
Bethlehem German Congregational Stone Church
A group of German speaking farmers living about 4 miles or so east of Fairfax started gathering in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fredrick G. Bentz. This was a sod home and they had eight children. Neighbors would meet in their sod house starting in the room where they lived. Eventually the group got larger, and they would have to move furniture out on Sunday morning to make room for the worshipers. Mrs. Bentz had a good singing voice and lead the congregation in their music. Men of the congregation would read sermons from a book unless a traveling preacher happened to come by. During this time, an epidemic struck the families of this community with at least one family loosing 5 children. Victims of this epidemic were buried on a neighboring son’s farm in white boxes. Adults were buried in black painted boxes. This was before a regular cemetery had been developed.
In 1897, John and Eva Hoffman donated property on their farm for a church building and cemetery about 1 mile or so south of the Bentz farm. The worshippers happily moved their services to the stone church they erected on the property and called it Bethlehem German Congregational Stone Church. Eventually, the inside and outside walls were covered with more modern material. The church itself was organized in 1893 with the building being built in 1895 and dedicated in 1897. They continued to worship here until they joined the German Congregational Church in Fairfax in 1924 -- transportation by automobile was becoming convenient.
Jesser Sod Church
The church ended up being located in Boyd County, Nebraska. Until 1895, the South Dakota state line was considered to be south along the Keya Paha River. For many of the residents, they continued to think of South Dakota as their location. This Sod House Church was located on the George Jesser (Yesser) farm which ended up being in the short section just south of the South Dakota state line. The worshippers who gather here from 1899 to 1903 built the sod building that housed their church’s gathering place. Indications are that there was also a cemetery established near the church building.
With transportation depending on horsepower or walking, the members lived within a couple miles of the church. Charter members of this church were M/M Henry Korb, Sr., M/M Henry Bachmann, M/M George Jesser, M/M Jacob Ernest, M/M Ludwig Horst, M/M Gottlieb Bachmann, M/M Mike Schochenmaier, M/M Jacob Brunnemeier, M/M Henry West, M/M Jacob Korb, M/M Fred Schultz, M/M Jacob Wuest, M/M Fred Schultz, M/M Charles Woerpel, M/M Jacob Ehly.
When this church disbanded, Mr. Jesser purchased the building and used it to teach school for a period of time. The building has returned to sod and the cemetery has no markers so the exact location on this farm is under investigation today by current owners. Most of this group joined the German speaking Hope Congregational Church in Fairfax.
Hope German Congregational Church
This church and parsonage were located at the NE corner of Mason and Third Street in Fairfax which was adjacent to the city park. With many German/Russian settlers in the Fairfax area, this was an active church drawing and merging of the Jesser Sod Church as well as the Bethlehem Stone Church from the Star Valley Township in 1924. Difficult problems developed for these worshipers when World War II came about. The US Government officials notified these folk that they could no long conduct worship services in German. The edict was that no one was to speak German in public gatherings and many of the German/Russian people who were comfortable speaking German were being reported by local citizens if they were caught speaking German with the risk of being sent to concentration camps. This caused many of this ethnic group to drop their identity to only indicate they were Russian. This restriction led this German speaking church to close their church doors and they sold their building in 1941 and joined the English-Speaking Congregational Church on the NE corner of Johnson and Fourth Street in Fairfax.
Hope Congregational Church
This church was first known as the First Congregational Church (English Church). It was organized on July 2, 1907, and dedicated July 2, 1907. This church ended up blending in several other churches. The Jesser Sod Church which first merged with the German Hope Congregational Church as well as the Bethlehem Stone Church from Star Valley twp. which merged with the German Hope Congregational Church now were blended with this new church facing the south on the corner of Johnson and 4th Street. In 1914, the Methodist Church which had a building on the SE corner of Mason and 4th Street merged with First Congregational Church. When the German Hope Congregational Church merged with this church in April 1941, the name for the combined church bodies was changed to Hope Congregational Church. In 1967, the Congregational denomination joined the “United Church of Christ.”
A bit of physical blending that took place over the years included the transfer of some of the furniture from the famous Fort Randall Stone Church after it had closed. Some individuals who had gained some of these items gave them to Hope Congregational Church. The altar of the church is unique in that Roman numerals are engraved on the sides and front. This altar from the Fort Randall Church was donated to the church by Mrs. T. J. Thompson of Fairfax who had purchased much of the fine wood of the chapel. Bench ends that were engraved were made of the oldest native wood in the territory and hewn from native timber taken from along the Missouri River at Fort Randall. These were used to build the church lectern and donated to the church. Gottlieb and Katherine Bachmann who had been members of Jesser Sod Church built a new house across the alley from the church and it ended up being the parsonage for the Hope Congregational Church.
This building today still houses the blending of all these churches in Fairfax, South Dakota. When the German Congregational Church merged with this group, the older German folk who were still comfortable with the German language all sat together in a small section on the west side of the worship center and kept their German hymn books in their pews and you could hear them boisterously singing the hymns in their German tongue in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Peace with the Germans now allowed them to enjoy their native tongue.~Research Contributer, Joe Thurstenson
"Many of these details come to me through my aunt Frieda (Gall) Lindgren who submitted a lot of this history to Adeline Gnirk’s book “Saga of the Missouri River Reveille”. Her parents (Bentz & Gall) were both born near the Black Sea in South Russia as German/Russians and were among the original squatters east of Fairfax about 1889 just before the land was opened for settlement."