Let’s head south, deep into South St. Louis County and check out some very old historic sites. Our first stop is St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Oakville, which was probably originally a German Evangelisch church. There are multiple expansions here, including a Modernist sanctuary as well as an English Gothic Revival church building facing Telegraph Road, which dates from 1919.
But the congregation’s roots go back much older in a different location along Old Baumgartner Road, about a five minute drive away.
Here you will find the original cemetery, which is relatively small.
The property has been owned by the congregation since 1844.
The parsonage next door dates to around 1878 and served the original church for St. Paul’s, which existed on this site until it moved to the Telegraph Road location shown above already.
It’s a simple building built with a rubble wall construction, consistent with what was a fairly isolated location at the time.
Right next door, only perhaps two hundred feet to the south is the Henry Schmitz House, constructed sometime around 1870 to 1878.
Schmitz was pastor of St. Paul’s, so it is logical that his house would have been located nearby. Apparently it was not complete by the time of his death.
