St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, La Crosse, WI

It was suggested that our Mystery church was St. James on the north side.  I knew this was not right per this pre-1950 photo.

St James the Less, cir. 1952

Now I failed to look closer at the address provided in the previous post but it is in the north half of the north side.  Likely in 1939 people lived close to their parish.  So the search continued on the north side.  Thanks to the history provided on St. James website, we find out that there was an ethnic-German parish which was shut down on the north side - St John the Baptist.  

St John the Baptist - La Crosse, WI

Of major importance in the history of St. James was the assimilation of some of the people from Our Lady of Lourdes Parish[oddly enough they combined a Maronite-rite parish with a Latin parish, perhaps some Romanization going on as sad as that is] and from St. John's Parish upon the closing of those two churches.

In 1876, North Side Catholics purchased a former public school building on St. James and Avon Streets[which is closer to the address of emailers grandparents than St James is] to use as their own school. The English and French speaking people sold their share in that building to the German speaking people when they built St. James Church in 1886. These Germans were members of St. Joseph's Cathedral, but overcrowded conditions there forced them to establish a church of their own. The lower floor of the school was renovated for a temporary church, and the first mass in the new St. John's Parish was held there in October 1887 (see photo at right).  [I checked and the grandparents were indeed from Germany and Austria]

St. John's Parish grew rapidly. A neighboring lot was purchased and the old church/school was placed on it to make room for the building of a new church on the corner site. The cornerstone was laid there in 1892, and the church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist on Passion Sunday, 1893. The first pastor was Rev. F. X.  Wilms. In 1928, a new school with four classrooms was built east of the church.

The parishioners were energetic and developed deep spirituality. They celebrated their Golden Jubilee in 1938, and again held a large celebration in 1963 for their 75th Anniversary. In 1960, Bishop John Treacy had begun terminating the national parish status of La Crosse churches in order to establish them as territorial parishes with definite boundaries. The debts at St. John's had become an insurmountable burden, partly because of the loss of parishioners due to the closing of major factories. Since St. James and St. John's served practically the same territory, the schools were combined in 1966, and on the first Sunday of June, 1970, St. John's became part of St. James.

 Now I can't tell for sure but it looks like the center statue is St John the Baptist holding the Lamb of God.

So I'm 90% sure this is St John the Baptist(which makes me even more excited he sent the photo since I've never seen pictures of it).

Here's the full shot again if anyone can confirm.