In 1841, Pastor Friedrich Wyneken in America published a plea to his fellow lutherans in Germany.
"They cry out and implore you: Oh, help us! Give us preachers to strengthen us with the bread of the Gospel and to instruct our children in the teachings of Jesus Christ! Oh, help us or we are undone!" (Graebner 5-6)
Pastor Loehe was so affected by this plea that he started planning and recruiting for four settlements in America (Frankenmuth, Frankentrost, Frankenlust, and Frankenhilf). During the planning, Loehe stopped and asked a colleague in Michigan if the Lutheran Church do anything for the natives. His colleague, Pastor Wilhelm Hattstaedt, reported that it was a plausible and doable undertaking to evangelize the Native Americans of Michigan. Pastor Loehe started recruiting volunteers to go through course and study to effectively spread Lutheran teachings. After these volunteers passed their courses, they were given the duty, if they should take it, to board the vessel Caroline and sail to the New World with a missionary mission.
The journey lasted a hard and disaster filled fifty days. Once they landed in New York, they took a rail (after the first train they were on collided with another train head on) to Monroe, Michigan. Then they traveled to Saginaw, where the women rested while the men walked to the purchased land to get it ready to be inhabited. After they had cleared the land and built two cabins, all of the settlers entered into their homes, making the settlement of Frankenmuth official in the summer of 1845. From this settlement up until 1850, settlers moved on and set up the other three missionary settlements around the area.
Throughout the decades following it's settlement, Frankenmuth grew and become home to more Lutherans from Germany. Stated in a book written by Truman Fox in 1911, "It now contains, aside from private dwellings, two Churches, two School Houses, two well supplied Stores, a Post Office, one Grist Mill, two Saw Mills, several Blacksmith, Wagon and other shops" (Fox 68-69). While the town was growing, they remained devoted to the Lutheran church and identified as being German-born or of German heritage, earning their town the title "Little Bavaria".
"These towns nurtured a social, economic, and political conservatism where German language, culture, and Lutheranism still flourished." (3)
Referenced: Graebner, Theodore. The Bavarian Settlements of Saginaw Valley. Concordia, St. Louis, 1919.