A crowd gathers to watch as firemen try to extinguish a fire at St. John's Church in Green Bay, March 13, 1911. This fire destroyed the third of four churches that have been home to the St. John the Evangelist parish. The first church was constructed around 1831 in the approximate location of the Allouez Catholic Cemetery. This church burned in 1846 through the carelessness of a mass-server. Consequently, the Catholic congregation purchased a Methodist church on St. John's Street in Green Bay.

Twenty-seven years later, this church also burned and the mainly French speaking congregation were compelled to erect a third church with a rectory built in the place of the old church. On March 13, 1911, however, the new church caught fire, gutting the building. The parishioners again built a new church on the opposite side of the rectory, completing the French Romanesque style structure in 1915.

Photo #692a.