During the early eighteen-eighties, Getchell and Stewart Townships were settled by German people of the Lutheran faith. Pastor Emil Kuehn of the Trinity Lutheran Church of Valley City was prevailed upon to come to the community to hold services in the Whitcher School in the summer and in homes during the winter.
In 1895 the Reverend J. H. L. Bohnhoff was serving the community. Space for the growing number of worshipers was needed, as well as a cemetery. Funds were collected and a church built in 1899, dedicated on July 20, 1899. At the next annual meeting on February 16, 1900, the Zion Lutheran Congregation was officially organized.
This small rural Lutheran Church has served as the center of a stable community for over sixty years. A dwindling farm population and automobiles and good roads caused this pioneer place of worship to close its doors in 1959 - closed but not forgotten.
Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 305