Designed by its first vicar, the Reverend George Stewart, the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan is the oldest church building in continuous use in Sauk Centre. Construction began in the spring of 1869, and completion of the $6700 structure was made possible by a $2000 gift sent from New York by Mrs. Robert B. Minturn as a memorial to her husband. The church was consecrated by the Right Reverend Henry Benjamin Whipple, first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, and on Christmas Eve of 1869 its first worship service included the wedding of Miss Nellie Barrows and Captain Oakford. On January 23, 1870, the Parish of the Good Samaritan was formally organized, with many of Sauk Centre's founding families among the more than fifty original members. Its Gothic Revival architecture and fifty-foot steeple on the east end gave old world charm to the frontier town, and its stained-glass windows were shipped from Pennsylvania and hauled to Sauk Centre by ox team from the nearest rail point; only the sacristy window survives from the originals, given in memory of Mrs. Rachel Moore by her son Alexander. The parish also developed a strong ministry of music under Dr. John Carton Grant, organist and choirmaster for more than thirty years until his death in 1984, and his Episcopal Choirmaster's Handbook, devised in 1957, was distributed nationwide and abroad.