First German Reformed Church

First German Reformed Church was a historic church built in 1891 at 413 Wisconsin Avenue in Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The 1891 building burned to the ground in 2005. First German's congregation began in 1866, when Prof. H. Kurtz, a missionary from Germany, organized the Erste Deutsche Reformierte Kirche (First German Reformed Church) among the German-speaking immigrants in Waukesha. By 1880 the congregation had grown to 190 communicants and was worshiping in a large stone structure built in 1840 to house the Prairieville Academy, which had moved on to become Carroll College. By 1890 First German had outgrown its building, so they decided to tear it down and build a new church on the same site. The floor-plan of the 1891 building was a 39 by 71 foot rectangular. The walls were wood frame clad in cream brick, on a raised foundation of rock-faced Waukesha limestone blocks. The walls were broken by tall round-arched windows, and separated into bays by pilasters in the brick. At the center of the north end stood a large rectangular tower, with the church's main entrance originally at its bottom. The first stage of the tower was brick, the second stage was a wood-sided lantern, and the third stage was an ornate belfry and steeple, topped with a cross. The style was High Victorian eclectic, with the symmetr

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