History of St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church
The "brief" history that you requested is this:
Our existence began on November 28, 1902 when the Seminary of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church had moved to what is now Bockman Hall. As the seminary professors and their families had been attending Bethlehem Lutheran in Minneapolis - at least an hour away by street car - they established an in-house congregation for convenience. This original group was called "Wartburg Congregation". The services were held in the Norwegian language and one of the professors was elected to serve in an unsalaried position as pastor. This was only a Sunday morning job.
Dr. M. O. Bockman served as the first pastor from 1902-1915. J. N. Kildahl served from 1915-1920. Dr. Carl M. Weswig served from 1920-1937, and in the early thirties the services were conducted in English with the exception that Norwegian was used in the summer when the services were held in the Muskego Church as the pews and floor of the seminary chapel were being varnished and had to dry before being used.
Sunday School was held in the basement below the chapel and also in some of the basement classrooms.
The congregation grew as some people of the local area began to attend.
In 1931 the property across what is now Luther Place and what was known as the Strickler Property was purchased to be used as Wartburg's parish house. By 1935 the membership of Wartburg was approximately 200 [note added, ?146]. As most of the debt for the Strickler Property was paid off, the congregation began to make further plans.
In 1937 a full time pastor Joseph Langemo was called. He began to serve in February 1938. The name of the congregation had just been changed to St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church. Langemo enlisted as a chaplain in 1943 so at that time Pastor Gerald Giving served as an interim pastor until Rev. Alvin Lewis was called. Rev. Lewis served for about seventeen years and the congregation membership really expanded. We really needed our own church so the property where the church now stands was purchased. A building committee settled on an architect in 1946 and after several changes because of costs, modifications were made and the church was built. The first service in the new church was held on March 10, 1949.
Several changes and additions have been made since that time. (Even now more changes are under way and we hope the modifications will be done soon.) In 1961 Rev. Robert L. Anderson was called and he served until 1970. Rev. Rolf Hansen served from 1971-1991. Rev. Robert Preuss served as associate pastor with Rev. Rolf Hansen from 1979 to 1989. He resigned to take a call to Cross Lutheran Church in Maplewood. Rev. Lawrence Lystig served as interim pastor for one year, and in August, 1992 Rev. Paul Ofstedal became our pastor.
September 1992. Sigurd Haugen.