RAISING THE RAFTERS

Immigrants who poured into a post-Civil War Texas in the late 1800’s came from an atlas of different places, including the tiny country of Denmark. Many Danish immigrants settled in the American Midwest first, then later uprooted and moved to Texas, including approximately one hundred families who purchased land 25 miles inland from the port town of Palacios. These families established a Danish community called Danevang, meaning “Danish Fields”, where they continued their Danish traditions and culture, including their affiliation with the Danish Lutheran Church. In need of a church, the members of the Danevang community built a meeting hall and established a cemetery on donated land soon after arriving. The meeting hall served as church, school, and gathering place for the community and included a second floor residence for the local pastor. The community then completed construction of Ansgar Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1908, named in honor of St. Ansgar, patron saint of Denmark. The church served Danevang citizens for decades until a hurricane destroyed the structure in 1945. Rather than rebuild, the community purchased a chapel building from Camp Hulen, the deactivated U.S. Army base in nearby Palacios. The chapel was disassembled, relocated to Danevang, then reassembled and modified to fit the community’s needs. Over the years, Ansgar has been dropped from the church’s name and today the chapel is known simply as the Danevang Lutheran Church.