Jenny Lind Chapel
The Jenny Lind Chapel, which is the “Mother Church” of the former Augustana Lutheran Church in America, had its beginning in 1850 when a group of ten Swedish Lutheran immigrants established a congregation under the leadership of the Rev. Lars Paul Esbjörn. Jenny Lind, the famous 19th century Swedish singer, donated $1,500 so the congregation could start the building she never saw.
Construction wasn’t easy. Lumber, which was to have been used for the church was lost when cholera struck, and the lumber was used to make coffins. The basement of the church became a hospital for the people with cholera. A brickyard was established in the colony, but heavy rains destroyed the bricks.
Not until the fall of 1854 was the church so near completion that it could be formally dedicated. The church was built in the most plain and prosaic form. There was no hint of churchly architecture. The building served as a dwelling for many of the immigrants who could find no other place to live when they first arrived. Very few churches were built in the midst of such sorrow, pain, and tears. The Chapel without a steeple and a bell attracted thousands of Swedish immigrants to Andover. The Chapel also was where the Norwegian-Danish Lutheran Church in America was organized in 1870.
The Jenny Lind Chapel was dedicated as a shrine of the Evangelical Augustana Church in America in 1948. In the early 1970's, a local committee raised $40,000 to renovate the Chapel. It was admitted to the National Register of Historic Places in the U.S. in 1975. An immigrant museum is housed in the basement. Hundreds of visitors come to the Chapel every year, many of them from foreign countries.
Augustana Lutheran Church - website
Just ten years after the completion of the simple structure now known as the Jenny Lind Chapel, the membership of the Lutheran congregation in Andover had grown so rapidly that it was decided to construct a new church, which was completed in 1870.
It was decided to build a church of brick that would seat a thousand people. The architect hired was Charles Ulrickson of Peoria. Every man of the congregation was to donate his services to brick making. The exterior is an imposing one, and there are 500,000 bricks in the structure. The church is 125 feet long, 60 feet wide, and the cross on the spire is 136 feet high. The roof is a wonder of itself - it is self-supporting and composed of eight rafters weighing 5,000 pounds each, making an aggregate of 20 tons in weight in rafter alone!
The permanent altar pulpit, altar rail, the pews, and all the woodwork were finished in time for the Augustana Synod Convention, which was held there in June of 1870 with 2,000 persons in attendance. The organ was installed in 1874, and had 800 pipes in it (127 new ones were added in 1955), 17 stops and two manuals. A bell weighing 2,471 pounds was placed in the spire in 1881, and the present art glass windows were installed in 1891.