The story of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church is unusual. The original location was at the corner of 9th and Mineral Street in Milwaukee. The building was built as a synagog in the 1800’s. At that time there was a heavy Jewish community in the area. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population had moved out and Slovenian refugees were arriving. They settled in the area and wanting their own church, purchased the synagog, converting it to a Catholic church. All of the services were conducted in Slovenian for decades.
In the 1980’s, with the expansion of the freeway system, the church was scheduled for demolition. (The spot where the synagog/church was located is now a freeway ramp.) The group purchased land in the city of Greenfield, where the church resides today, in order to construct a new church. Lacking funds for the desired building, they opted to build a temporary church set far back from the street. The ‘temporary’ church is a rectangular building and is the existing structure today. The original design for the new church was a church in the round. The plans for that building were sold and today that is Saint Alexander Church on Milwaukee’s south side.
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The story of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church is unusual. The original location was at the corner of 9th and Mineral Street in Milwaukee. The building was built as a synagog in the 1800’s. At that time there was a heavy Jewish community in the area. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population had moved out and Slovenian refugees were arriving. They settled in the area and wanting their own church, purchased the synagog, converting it to a Catholic church. All of the services were conducted in Slovenian for decades. In the 1980’s, with the expansion of the freeway system, the church was scheduled for demolition. (The spot where the synagog/church was located is now a freeway ramp.) The group purchased land in the city of Greenfield, where the church resides today, in order to construct a new church. Lacking funds for the desired building, they opted to build a temporary church set far back from the street. The ‘temporary’ church is a rectangular building and is the existing structure today. The original design for the new church was a church in the round. The plans for that building were sold and today that is Saint Alexander Church on Milwaukee’s south side.