St. John Lutheran Church And Schools/ St. John Lutheran Church And Schools

In 1864, local residents asked Pastor Herman Lemke of East Detroit to help them organize a Lutheran church in Fraser. That same year, they built a small wood frame building on land south of 14 Mile Road. Each week after Sunday service, they moved the pews aside so desks and chairs could be set up for the school week. The congregation replaced the small church with a larger wood frame church and school in 1867. A fire destroyed the building on Christmas Eve 1884. In 1884-85, members built a new two-story school and a separate church with a seating capacity of 600. The school had two classrooms, one on each floor. St. John school was the only school in Fraser until the village built a one-room schoolhouse at 13 Mile and Utica Roads around 1882. As the area’s population grew, St. John Lutheran Church members requested schools closer to their homes. In 1877, the church built two additional schools: one at Cady’s Corners on Utica Road and the Krim School at Plumbrook and Dodge Park Roads in Sterling Township. Krim served residents until around 1894; and Cady’s Corner, until 1929. They both closed as improved transportation options allowed students to be educated elsewhere, including the St. John school in Fraser. In the 1940s and 1950s, St. John pastors drove school buses daily. In 1957, the church finished moving all classes to a school building built here in 1948. The 1884-85 school became the Fraser Public Library in 1964. Members built a new church here in 1985-86.