19th-Century German Progressives Made Mark in Jefferson City

By Walter A. Schroeder, for Historic City of Jefferson

German immigrants contributed to Jefferson City in many ways. The contribution of 19th-century German progressives has not received attention because they were not organized and had no name.

Few in number, not more than 50, they were vastly outnumbered by other Germans. I call them “progressives” for being dissatisfied with the status quo and advocating often unpopular changes or “progress.” Many supported the Radical Republican Party that took over post–Civil War government.

Who were these early German progressives? Their core comprised immigrant refugees from the failed German revolutions of the first half of the 19th century in which the struggle for freedom from governmental and ecclesiastical autocracy was squashed by royalist armies. They subscribed to the humanism of Goethe and Schiller, which in America translated into elevating women’s status and treating African Americans as equals.

Prussian-born Arnold Krekel (1815–1888) was an abolitionist newspaper publisher, attorney, state representative, Union Army colonel, federal judge, and a founder of Lincoln University. He was one of several prominent German immigrant progressives in Jefferson City in the 1800s.

German progressives were well-educated, especially in the humanities, and expressed their ideas through oratory, drama, and poetry. City-oriented, they encouraged rapid learning of English and rapid integration into public life in contrast to the tradition-preserving German Catholics and Lutherans in their parish churches. Progressives advocated diversity and multiculturalism by bringing visitors to Jefferson City who offered different ideas. In 1892, progressive German Central Evangelical Church hosted Amen Hasi, Palestinian speaker and perhaps the first Muslim in Jefferson City, “to illustrate customs and practices of Mohammedans and oriental ways in general.”

Progressives made their mark in the beginnings of public education in Jefferson City. They established their own German-English School at 216–222 W. McCarty before the Civil War. Four of the six members of the first Board of Education (1867) were German immigrants. In her history of Jefferson City public schools, Jerena Giffen wrote “it was the German element . . . who were the main supporters of the earliest public school efforts.” That “German element” was more specifically German progressives.

Jefferson City’s German-English School, 216–222 W. McCarty (now demolished).

German Catholics and Lutherans maintained their parochial schools. Progressives insisted local taxation for schools include provisions for a Black school, which roiled voters just after the Civil War. Progressives brought from Germany the belief that school teaching was a profession and one not left to pedagogically untrained, unmarried women.

Progressives stood out for their religious views, sharpened by what they experienced in Germany as disallowing freedom of personal belief. While unquestioningly Christian, they dismissed the many denominations that Christianity had been divided into. They disdained adherence to a particular interpretation of scripture to the exclusion of others. They were sheltered throughout Missouri in the Protestant Evangelical church, which became the liberal United Church of Christ in 1957. Jefferson City’s Central Evangelical Church, born in 1858 as a “union” church for all, accepted different creeds and confessions and let members use their personal interpretation of scripture to reconcile differences.

Central Evangelical Church (1858), Parsonage (1860), and School (1871), photographed in 1881. The church was on the corner of Washington and Ashley, and the street in the foreground is Washington. This was the first church building of the congregation that, after denominational mergers, became Central United Church of Christ in 1957.

Progressives were outspoken in civic affairs well beyond what their small numbers would suggest in elective city offices like mayor, treasurer, assessor, and the City Council.

Notable Jefferson City progressives include:

Ernst Anton Zuendt, who gave up his German inherited title of baron to become a humanist author and journalist in America and doyen of German American poets. He was the first German teacher (1868) in local public schools and left an indelible mark in the character of early public education. He established the local Turners Club, center of German progressivism.

Ernst Anton Zuendt (1819–1897) was a Jefferson City progressive, humanist, poet, and educator.

Fred H. Binder, an architect, builder, mayor, councilman, and leader in many civic projects. He was president and builder of Central Evangelical Church. He brought from Germany the concept of a building and loan association—a progressive idea that enabled common people to acquire their homes affordably and avoid usurious interest rates of banks.

Fred H. Binder (1882–1911) was one of Jefferson City’s most prominent civic leaders in the 19th century. Binder Lake was named in his honor. (His German name is pronounced BINN-der.)

Theodore Schultz, a High Street grocer, city assessor, justice of the peace, and Civil War veteran, in whose back room progressives met for gemütlichkeit while discussing social and political issues.

Fred Knaup, who used his High Street City Hotel to be unofficial greeter of arriving German progressives and others; he was on the board of education for 23 years.

Nicholas DeWyl and family, pharmacists; his daughter Frederika DeWyl Simonsen cast off the social status then expected of women to become Missouri’s first licensed female pharmacist. The DeWyls were members of the Evangelical Church.

George Wagner, Bavarian brewer who left the confessional Lutheran Church to join the open Evangelical Church. His sons Conrad, Lorenz, and William used their fortunes to help develop the city, like Wagner Place and Monroe House.

George Wagner (1821–1895) founded the Wagner brewery that ultimately became the Capital Brewery. He was one of the group of German progressives who championed public education and equal rights in the 19th century.

Federal judge Arnold Krekel, a leading figure in establishing Lincoln University, who relentlessly pushed for Black education. He and other progressives worked with veterans of the 62nd and 65th regiments of the USCI to establish Lincoln.

The Rev. Joseph Rieger, who lived with abolitionist Congregationalists in New England before becoming the first pastor of Central Evangelical Church in 1860. He spoke out for abolition and for education of Blacks at Lincoln University and in public schools.

Rev. Joseph Rieger (1811–1869) was the first pastor at Central Evangelical Church. A staunch abolitionist, he led the congregation that dared to fly the Union flag proudly in front of its church in the tense, politically mixed city during the Civil War. He ministered to Black and White inmates at the prison and was its only chaplain during the Civil War, and he married Black couples who had fled from slavery in Callaway County. After the war, he helped establish Lincoln University and served on its board until his death.

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Note: On June 13, 2021, Central Church, its progressive members having earlier left to organize The Oasis United Church of Christ, voted to leave the progressive United Church of Christ denomination.

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Walter Schroeder grew up in Jefferson City’s historic German Southside now known as Old Munichburg. A retired professor of geography, he is devoted to preserving cultural history and is the author of five books on the history of the Old Munichburg neighborhood.

[This article first appeared in the Jefferson City News-Tribune’s “Cole County History” series on Saturday, July 31, 2021, p. B4. Slight editorial changes have been made, including to add images and captions beyond the one picture (of A. E. Zuendt) that appeared in the paper, and to update for 2024 the number of JC history books authored by Walter Schroeder. —ed.]

Copyright © Walter A. Schroeder, 2021

Jefferson City’s First YMCA

Jefferson City’s popular Firley YMCA, at 525 Ellis Boulevard on the southern edge of the Southside, recently reopened after serious damage from the tornado of May 22, 2019. Most people don’t know that Jefferson City’s first YMCA was organized in the Southside (then called Munichburg) on November 2, 1881, at Central Evangelical Church, now Central United Church of Christ. At the time, it was a German-speaking congregation, so its YMCA was called the Christliche Jünglingsverein der Evangelischen Central Gemeinde (Young Men’s Christian Association of Evangelical Central Congregation). It was affiliated with the national YMCA organization.


The Central Evangelical Church's school (left, shown in 1881) was the home of Jefferson City's first YMCA.

It was common for German American churches to be among the first Midwestern sponsors of YMCAs, perhaps because of the German penchant for calisthenics and exercise, and for forming organizations. Membership began after confirmation at age 13 and lasted until age 30, when one became a honorary member. The organization’s constitution had rules, with cash fines, on attendance, language, and smoking (prohibited during singing and praying).

In keeping with the congregation’s openness to those of other faiths, Central’s YMCA included young men from other local congregations, including English-speaking ones. It also included members from families of all socioeconomic levels and thus was an “equalizer.” By 1895 the YMCA had 66 members but lost its affiliation with the national organization because it began to accept young women. The name was then changed to Christlicher Jügendverein (Christian Youth Organization).

Central’s YMCA was briefly resurrected in 1920, when the church’s Men’s Association authorized the YMCA to sign the contract with Brunswick to construct a bowling alley. By that time, the congregation had switched to English. Central’s YMCA disappears from the record not long after and was replaced by several youth groups.

©Walter A. Schroeder, 2019, with information from the Central UCC archives
Photo illustration from CUCC archives and from Harold Horstmann and Mrs. Gus Schwartz Sr.

My Boyhood Christmas in Jefferson City

A fourth-century bishop by the name of Nicholas was known for giving gifts to people secretly. He was deemed a saint, and his death date, December 6, has ever since been known as his feast day, St. Nicholas Day, in Catholic and Orthodox churches. For centuries Christians gave gifts on December 6.

In the sixteenth century Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, insisted on going back to holy scripture, and since St. Nicholas was not in the Bible, Luther said that the date of Christ’s birth should be used for the annual practice of gift giving. At that time, December 25 was the recognized date of Christ’s birth, so Christians in Germany shifted gift giving from St. Nicholas Day, December 6, to Christmas Day, December 25.

But not everyone agreed to this. Some German Christians followed Luther’s lead to use December 25, but others continued with December 6. Some families used both! St. Nicholas brought gifts to children on December 6, and the Christ Child (Christkind, later called Kris Kringle) brought gifts on December 25. My immigrant grandparents, of the German Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, were of this “double tradition.”

This oversimplified background is necessary to understand how Christmas came to a little five-year old boy in Jefferson City: By the 1930s in America, “St. Nicholas” had become Santa Claus, who came on Christmas Eve, and the guy who visited on December 6 was “Kris Kringle,” who still looked a lot like St. Nicholas.

On December 6 my brother and I used straight pins to hang our long socks on the beaverboard wall that enclosed our attic bedroom. We could have set our little shoes outside the bedroom door, but it didn’t take much experimentation to discover that our long winter socks stretched and could hold more than our little leather shoes.

So it was Kris Kringle who came during the night of December 6—but wait! He wasn’t alone! Accompanying him was mean ol’ Knecht Ruprecht. That was the only name we heard. Of course, we never saw these two characters. If we had been good boys, good Kris Kringle left hard candy and maybe an apple or orange in our socks, but we sure preferred the candy. If we had not been good, then that mean ol’ Knecht Ruprecht left us sticks, or maybe pieces of coal.

One December 6, we were shocked to find sticks in our socks! We didn’t know what we had done that was so bad, but it sure scared us. Maybe our aging grandparents, who lived with us, overheard us saying something bad, or maybe we hadn’t done our chores. Whatever the reason, those sticks did the trick, and we shaped up during the next couple of weeks before real Christmas. Parents, you see, used December 6 as a warning for kids to behave during those very busy days before Christmas.

When Christmas morning came, we had gifts galore. All of grandpa and grandma’s children (our aunts and uncles) and their children (our cousins) came to Jefferson City for Christmas. They all converged on our house on Christmas Day. Since my brother and I were the youngest grandchildren in this crowd (during 1938–1941 we ranged from 4 to 10), all those relatives gave us extra attention.

As the years went on, St. Nicholas Day, December 6, was dropped but not forgotten. At least, not by me. Each year, come December 6, I remember those sticks I got in 1939. The image of them in my socks hanging on the wall reminds me to shape up. It makes me think of the real meaning of Christmas and inspires me to give gifts to others.

Today, few remember December 6 as the original day for Christians to give gifts. Absolutely everything is now concentrated on December 25. Christmas celebrations and songs stop the next day, people take down their Christmas trees, and by New Year’s Day, most public traces of Christmas are long gone.

Yet another old tradition is to continue the Christmas season through the Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day and end on January 6, Epiphany, when the Three Kings arrived bearing gifts (and you supposedly get twelve drummers drumming). Today, marketers would have you think that the Twelve Days comprise the final twelve shopping days before Christmas! Many European countries, however, still celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men on January 6.

Considering how few Americans observe the Twelve Days of Christmas, special congratulations are due to Jefferson City’s Central United Church of Christ, which has always kept its Christmas stars on its tall steeple shining until Epiphany, January 6!

Merry Christmas from the Old Munichburg Association! Consider a gift membership for your loved ones this year. It’s non-cluttering, non-fattening, and gives both the giver and the recipient a warm feeling inside!

Copyright 2012 by Walter A. Schroeder.

Remembering Francis Joseph Zeisberg, Eminent Jefferson City Musician

Has Jefferson City forgotten one of its most eminent musicians?

Franz Josef Zeisberg, organist, violinist, pianist, composer, and teacher, was born in 1862 in the Sudeten mountains of Prussian Silesia, now part of Poland. Raised on a farm by musical parents, the teenager emigrated to Jefferson City in 1881 (he was only eighteen!) and first worked as a manual laborer in a brickyard where he learned English.

He began his musical career in Jefferson City in 1884 by opening the City Conservatory in the Conrath House on Madison Street in partnership with immigrant Carl Preyer. Zeisberg was organist at the Central German Evangelical Church (now Central United Church of Christ).

In 1887 he married Clara Hugershoff, stepdaughter of Fred H. Binder (who had been elected mayor in 1884). That marriage allowed Zeisberg entrance into the highest levels of Jefferson City society, because of Binder’s prominence in civic affairs. Zeisberg’s career took off.

I wish I could find a photo of Zeisberg. Here, at least, is his physical description at age forty-four, according to his 1906 American passport:

Stature: 5 feet, 11½ inches. Forehead: High. Eyes: Blue. Nose: Prominent. Mouth: Average. Chin: Sharp. Hair: Dark blonde. Complexion: Fair. Face: Average. Thin, full beard.

Zeisberg went to Lexington, Missouri, to teach at the Elizabeth Aull Seminary for women, then to Chicago, where his musical talents became more widely known and appreciated. With a solid reputation in the musical world, in 1892 he began a thirty-year career as conservatory director at Martha Washington College in Abingdon, Virginia.

He retired at age sixty in 1922 for health reasons, and the Zeisbergs returned to Jefferson City, leaving their three grown children in good professions on the East Coast. He retained a home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, to which he returned annually in summers until the 1940s.

In Jefferson City, the professor and Clara moved into the substantial Fred Binder house at 210 East Dunklin, unoccupied after Papa Fred Binder’s death in 1911 and Mrs. Binder’s death in 1920. The Zeisbergs continued to live there in the Southside until their deaths.

The Binder property included the southeast corner of Dunklin and Madison, catercorner from Busch’s Florist. While the Zeisbergs lived there, it was a wooded tract with a small creek running through it before going out of sight into a long tunnel under the street intersection.

This is how the corner looked around 1951. Madison Street is in the foreground; Dunklin is in the distance. The view is almost true east.

Here is the same view, as of September 2, 2012:

Professor Zeisberg gave organ concerts at the Southside’s Central Evangelical Church, where the Zeisbergs were members, and other local churches, always to full and appreciative attendances. He was the first in Jefferson City to broadcast organ music over the new WOS radio station, directly from Central Church’s organ.

He taught students in piano, organ, and violin. His best-known student, by far, was Carl E. Burkel, who received his first organ lessons as a preteen on Central Church’s large Möller pipe organ. Burkel is well remembered in Jefferson City for his forty-one years of teaching music at Jefferson City High School and directing the Jefferson City Symphony and Capitol Caroling at Christmas. Carl later told me about sitting as a boy on the church organ bench with “that old German” teaching him the intricacies of a multiregister organ.

I was one of Professor Zeisberg’s piano students from age nine to eleven. The nineteenth-century Binder house was spacious and had a big, airy sunroom with windows on three sides overlooking the corner woods and little creek.

Mrs. Zeisberg filled the sunroom to overflowing with pots of ferns and other large plants, making it a tropical paradise just as luxurious as Busch’s greenhouses across the corner.

Professor Zeisberg gave his lessons at an upright piano in an adjacent room, and as I sat on the piano bench I could see the great abundance of Mrs. Zeisberg’s ferns and the woods beyond. I imagined I was playing a piano in a park!

You can see the sunroom in this sketch that my wife, Pat, made of the Binder house in 1950 while an art student in high school.

Professor Zeisberg emphasized German music, especially Beethoven sonatas. When I got reasonably proficient in one, the professor uncased his violin and played the melody with embellishments along with me on the piano.

At times he would lean over me to get close to the music to read it, and the backs of his hands showed the huge, bulging veins of an active eighty-two-year old man. When I made a mistake, he rapped my hands gently with his violin bow and slipped into German to say “Es ist nicht so, Walter!” (That isn’t right, Walter!) In 1944 he gave me a manuscript copy of one of his compositions for children, titled “Kris Kringle,” composed in 1922.

Professor Zeisberg promenaded daily throughout the Southside. He was tall, bearded, and very much the proud German professor. He wore an old-fashioned black suit and top hat, which made him look like Abraham Lincoln. Though in his eighties, he walked very erect in long strides, tapping his black cane as he went briskly along.

Professor Francis Joseph Zeisberg died in 1951 at age eighty-nine. Clara, his wife for fifty-nine years, had died five years earlier. They were buried in the large Binder plot in Riverview Cemetery.

The Zeisbergs’ unmarried daughter Elsa had returned to Jefferson City to care for them when they were aging. She continued to live in the house in the woods at 210 East Dunklin until 1958 (she died 1985), when the property was sold to the Milo H. Walz family, which saw an opportunity to develop the corner commercially.

Here is another view of that corner. This time the view is almost true north, toward the intersection of Madison and Dunklin. The brick building at the left is the Madison side of the Wel-Com-In. The horizontal white structure to its right are the greenhouses for Busch’s Florist. The upright storefront for Busch’s is to the right of that.

Here is the same view as of September 2, 2012:

The beautiful, sturdy Binder/Zeisberg house is now encased within a modern commercial building at 210 E. Dunklin, with its nineteenth-century brick chimneys projecting bizarrely above a flat, modern roofline. Here are some views of the building.

. . . And the shady woods has been totally cut down. The pretty little creek now runs underground as a drainage sewer.

That corner of Madison and Dunklin became the Bolten Southside Conoco and most recently is Doug’s Blvd. Motors. Fred Binder’s well-preserved 1800s black surrey (with a fringe on top!), which was still housed in a carriage house on the property when it was sold in 1958, was given to the Missouri State Museum in the Capitol, where it was on exhibit for many years. Most recently it has been displayed at the museum at Lohhman’s Landing, but as of Labor Day weekend 2012, that museum is closed for renovations and the surrey will be placed into storage indefinitely.

Professor Zeisberg’s legacy endures not only in the huge number of students he taught in Jefferson City and Virginia, but also in his enormous volume of compositions. He began publishing in the 1890s with the Theodore Presser Company of Philadelphia. He composed numerous children’s songs for both piano and violin, transcriptions of well-known American melodies like Stephen Foster’s “Old Black Joe,” and other, longer works.

He composed secular and church music for male and mixed choruses. Central United Church of Christ still uses some of the anthems and choral responses he composed or arranged for it more than eighty years ago. Most impressively, he composed two full-length masses and at least eighty-five—yes, eighty-five!—fugues for the organ.

His immense trove of compositions, some published and others in manuscript, was given to his star student, Carl Burkel. A few of the organ fugues are in the music library of Central Church.


Special thanks to Albert Case for sharing his personal memories of Professor Zeisberg. Mr. Case drove the “Dutchy” professor to his summer home in Virginia in the Zeisberg touring auto. Thanks also to Shirley Klein, organist at Central United Church of Christ, for sharing the manuscript copies of Zeisberg’s fugues. Thanks also to the late Don Walz for his photographs of the Binder woods. The photo of Carl Burkel is from Carl’s collection and was made by Bob Elliott; it is used with permission. And thanks to my wife for sharing her schoolgirl artistic talents. I cannot find a photo of the Binder house!

Copyright 2012 by Walter A. Schroeder.

Fires and Fire Protection in the Southside

This year, 2012, is the centennial of the professional Jefferson City Fire Department. A volunteer fire department existed as early as the 1840s, but the spectacular Capitol fire of 1911 showed the need for a funded professional fire department, which was organized in 1912. The Old Munichburg district of Jefferson City can contribute to this history.

A century and more ago, people had a constant fear of house fires, especially flue fires. Everyone burned wood or coal for cooking and heating. They had kerosene (coal-oil) lamps for lighting. There was plenty of fire danger around. Sparks showered out of chimneys onto roofs of combustible wood or, later, asphalt shingles and set roofs on fire.

Early on, house fires were fought with water hand pumped from cisterns into buckets that were thrown onto the fire. Later on, fires were put out with “chemical,” most likely hydrochloric acid with baking soda as a propellant. Church records show that as late as 1943 the Jefferson City Fire Department refilled the six soda-acid fire extinguishers of Central United Church of Christ for $3.00.

Before the professional Jefferson City Fire Department was formed, the volunteer fire company’s main station was on High Street. A branch was formed in 1890 in Munichburg on the northeast corner of Dunklin and Washington, on the Moerschel Brewery property. The large brewery itself had two water wells with air-compressor pumps and “48 fire dust hand grenades.”

The 1890s were a decade of major construction in Munichburg. Central Church built its present building in 1891, and Farmers Home (the ECCO building), the Nieghorn House (Bassmann Apartments), Western Steam Bottling Works (J&D Bike Shop), and a new Moerschel Brewery were built and added to the existing Tanner and Morlock mercantile stores and Tanner Foundry and Staihr tinsmith shop.

The “Muenchberg City Hose HQ” had a cart with 500 feet of two-and-a-half-inch rubber hose. The cart was pulled either by volunteer men or by horses.

The Munichburg Fire Department building fell into disrepair, and the cart became obsolete when the professional fire department was formed in 1912 and outfitted with a motorized truck. The Southside Boosters appealed to the city to do something about the dilapidated “shack in which the old time honored reel is housed.” Firemen were afraid “the old structure will topple down upon the man who rings the fire bell.” But the Munichburg Fire Department was not updated and was lost to the Southside. Quite a few German-speaking men of old Munichburg had been volunteers with that former neighborhood fire station.

Several Southside fires have made the newspapers over the years. On May 3, 1916, when horses were still stabled behind buildings, the Fire Department was summoned to the Southside “to extinguish a blaze in a stable in the rear of the Southside Hotel [Bassmann Building]. Some lad had dropped a match in the manger and the blaze quickly made itself apparent. The halter around the horse’s neck was burned before someone extinguished the blaze with a bucket of water. The horse was slightly singed.”

After cars and gas stations came, the March 27, 1919, German newspaper relates the following incident on East Dunklin:

On Thursday evening, while the truck of South Side merchant J. B. Doerhoff [he had the secondhand store later taken over by Milo Walz at 126 E. Dunklin] was at the Waters-Pierce Oil Station and being filled with gasoline, a young rascal went by, lit a cigarette with a match, and threw the still-burning match under the truck. The dripping gasoline on the ground blazed forth in flame and the fire spread over the truck. The fire company was called. It was feared that the Gasoline tank would explode and set the oil station on fire. The fire company pulled the truck away from its place and then extinguished the fire with chemicals. The front part of the truck, where the driver sits, was destroyed.

In the next issue of the newspaper, it was reported that Doerhoff bought a new Republic truck from Heisinger Brothers, using the partially destroyed delivery truck as part of the deal.

In January 1919 a fire destroyed the house of Mrs. Mary Nilges, 805 Jefferson Street. It sat right next to the Nilges Grocery Store on the southeast corner of Jefferson and Ashley. This was doubly tragic for Mrs. Nilges, because only six weeks before, just before Christmas, her husband Theodore Nilges was killed by a broken neck in a car accident nearby. A successful grocer, Nilges had been a city councilman and president of the Southside’s Cole County Bank. The widowed Mrs. Nilges then moved into the second floor above the store, and the house was later rebuilt and rented. The Nilges Store building and house were demolished in 2009.

One of Jefferson City’s most memorable fires occurred on November 10, 1922, when the Lohman mansion, built in 1893 at 933 Jefferson Street, burned. According to the newspaper, the Lohman mansion “for many years was by far the handsomest structure in this city.” Mrs. Amelia Lohman was preparing an elegant tea party that day to announce the engagement of her daughter Margaret, when a neighbor boy, Willie Zuendt, rushed into the house to inform her that the roof was on fire.

In fact, tenants of the Central Trust building six blocks away on High Street saw the fire before Mrs. Lohman was even aware of it. It had already burned for an hour under the third floor roof when the fire department arrived.

The Louis C. Lohman mansion, prior to the 1922 fire.

“Everything was ruined,” according to the paper. Part of the multiturreted roof fell in, causing firefighters to retreat. The cause of the fire was never known. The mansion was later rebuilt and restored to its grandeur, but without the third floor and turrets.

By the way, the dainty petits fours and charming finger sandwiches that Mrs. Lohman had prepared for her ladies’ party that afternoon did not go to waste: She served them to the firemen while they fought the blaze. The beautiful Lohman mansion was demolished by the Salvation Army in 2003. (The image of the pretty sandwiches was copied from here.)




Within more recent times was the tragic arson fire of Central United Church of Christ on April 29, 1994. The nighttime fire raged through the balcony, narthex, and rear of the sanctuary and caused heavy smoke damage throughout, but firemen prevented further damage to the historic church. The sanctuary was completely renovated, six new stained-glass windows were installed to replace the originals too heavily damaged from the heat, and the badly damaged organ was totally reconstructed.

Such tragedies have led to increased security measures for historic and invaluable properties.

Southside residents and business owners today no longer fear fires to the degree their predecessors did, because of better building materials and construction, safer energy sources, and a well-trained, professional fire department.

Copyright 2012 by Walter A. Schroeder.

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The Old Munichburg Association joins the Jefferson City Fire Department in celebrating its centennial, 1912–2012!