Contributor: Marie Hardesty Source: Personal collection

German School, Zion Lutheran Church, and Lutheran Parsonage, ca. 1905

Pictured in the foreground above is the Fairwater German School building operated by the Lutheran church during the decades of the 1880's, 1890's, and early 1900's, exact dates uncertain. It is believed that the school building was the original First Regular Baptist Church building, constructed in 1860, and whose congregation was formed in 1850 with a membership of 13. By 1880, the History of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin reported:

The [First Regular Baptist] society was at one time quite flourishing, but by deaths and removals has become very small. It is now nominally a branch of the Ripon Baptist Church, but most of the former members attend and help support the Free-Will Baptist Church of Fairwater. No regular services are now held in the church; it is the temporary lodge-room of the Good Templars.

The German School was created shortly thereafter and is visible on the 1893 plat map of the village. It was discontinued shortly after the turn of the century.