The history of St. Paul's

The first recorded Episcopal services to be held in the Marinette/Menominee area were in 1858, led by the Rev.Charles Edwards, Rector of Christ Church, Green Bay, who had been appointed missioner to the towns north of that city by Bishop Jackson Kemper, of the Diocese of Wisconsin. In 1873, St. Paul's was organized as a mission, and in its earliest years, met in various halls on Main St. The Diocese of Fond du Lac was created in 1875, and, in 1899, St. Paul's was given parish status, under the episcopate of Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton

A small, wooden church was built in 1880 at the church's present location on land donated by Senator Isaac Stephenson. A rectory was built beside the church in 1883. In 1912, the church building was enlarged, redecorated and encased in brick and stucco, in the English Gothic style. At that time, a Kimball pipe organ was given by the women of the church.

The present rectory was constructed in 1927, when the old rectory was converted into a parish house, for parish functions and Sunday School. After that building was condemned in 1958, the church basement was finished to provide limited space for Christian education and other activities. In 1965 a new parish house, with office and classroom areas, was built, and what had served as a choir room was converted into a chapel.

In 1994, a mechanical action pipe organ, built by Jaeckel and Associates of Duluth, was installed. A large building addition was constructed in 2002 containing a narthex, classrooms and a garth. This addition also provided accessibility for the handicapped.

All of this construction throughout the years has been an outward and visible sign of the building of a community of faith, where the Gospel has been lived and proclaimed within the context of that wonderful combination of catholic and evangelical which is the Anglican tradition.