Parkway UCC / German Evangelical Zion Church

Genealogical Data

The baptism, confirmation, marriage, and death records linked below are limited for privacy. StLGS is following state guidelines wherever possible. As of 2015, births/baptisms online are at least one hundred years old, hence, prior to 1915; confirmations are at least eighty-six years old, prior to 1929; marriages are at least forty-five years old, prior to 1971; and deaths are at least fifty years old, prior to 1965. Additional indexed data from these records may be available; please come to the StLGS office to view it. As privacy limits permit, society volunteers will add the data online.

The following indexes and/or records from this congregation are available:

Baptisms from 1838 to 1914

Confirmations from 1851 to 1928

Marriages from 1839 to 1970

Deaths recorded from 1839 to 1965

Clergy from 1837 to 2012

Family Register from 1839 to 1903

The indexes are arranged by last name, then given name. Each entry links to the church register section that contains the written entry.

History

Established: 1838

In 1838 a group of Protestant Germans settled in the area known today as Des Peres, Missouri, to form a joint German Evangelical and Lutheran congregation. Known as the German Evangelical Zion Church, this congregation was established on Manchester Road near Ballas Road in St. Louis County. Their first log cabin was built on that site.

In 1843, early Lutherans in the Stratmann area of the county (now Creve Coeur), who originally attended the Zion Evangelical Church rather than traveling downtown, split away to form their own church. These Lutherans called themselves the Evangelical Congregation of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession on the Bonhomme Road; they are now Immanuel Lutheran, Olivette.

The original Zion Evangelical Church built a second log structure about a mile north of Manchester and Ballas Roads in 1847, and they opened a cemetery for their members, which is now at 1930 Windmoor Place. They continued as a joint congregation until 1849 when the remaining congregants split into two churches, one Evangelical and one Lutheran. The Lutheran church, now called St. Paul’s Lutheran in Des Peres, remained at the Ballas and Manchester site.

The Evangelicals moved further north on Ballas Road to Ballas and Clayton and became the Parkway Zion Evangelical Church, retaining the early records of the former joint congregation.

In 1855, this congregation formally joined the Evangelical Church Association of the West (now Evangelical Synod of North America). In 1858, the church established a school further north on Ballas. A third log church, built 1861, fixed their location at the northeast corner of Ballas and Clayton Roads in Bonhomme Township near the school. In 1870, the church merged with the German Protestant Evangelical Church and replaced the older church with a new brick building, dedicated 1871. A new cemetery behind the church (now Elm Lawn Cemetery) replaced the old cemetery in 1886.

As more denominational mergers occurred, the congregation’s name changed in 1934 to Zion Evangelical and Reformed Church and in 1958 to Parkway UCC. The old church building was closed in 1998 when the congregation relocated to a new building across Ballas Road. The old building is now a historic site, used as the home of the St. Louis Children’s Choir.

German Evangelical Zion Church

Photos by Donald A Wallace
© 2015 (Used with permission)