Jill Schramm/MDN A crew with Dig It Up Backhoe Service demolishes a house near the corner of Second Avenue and Eighth Street in northeast Minot Monday for the flood protection project.

A building that once served as Minot’s original St. Paul’s Lutheran Church came down Monday, making way for the flood protection project.

The Missouri Synod congregation officially organized in 1905 and acquired the building, believed to have been constructed for the railroad, holding services there until completion of a new building at 200 E. Burdick in 1950. The building at the corner of Second Avenue and Eighth Street in northeast Minot had under gone remodeling projects and took on an addition in serving as a church. A parsonage had been built next door.

William Schmitz of Minot, who attended the original church as a boy, remembers it was a simple building, unlike the more ornate church that he and his family later attended on Burdick.

Mariea Nelson of Minot also recalls attending services in the original building. It was quite full of people in those days.

“I remember there were a lot of kids in our confirmation class,” she said. Her confirmation class was the last to take their training in the old church.

Nelson said her father, Max Braun, born in 1905, was baptized in the original church building and was a member of St. Paul’s most of his life. His was the last confirmation class to have classes conducted in German.

The original church was sold to a new owner, who converted it into residential property. The City of Minot purchased the house this year from Deborah Luetzen, who had lived there since 1985. Luetzen said her grandmother and father both were baptized in the original church building.