In the 1860s and 1870s, settlers from Bohemia, now part of Czechoslovakia, came to this area and worked at the Leland Lake Superior Iron Foundry and the Gill sawmill. Catholics attended mass at Holy Trinity Church in Leland until that church burned in 1880. In 1890, the first St. Wenceslaus Church was built and the cemetery established. Ornate metal grave markers reflect Bohemian heritage, as do the names Bourda, Houdek, Hula, Jelinek, Kalchick, Kirt, Kolarik, Korson, Kovarik, Maresh, Novotny, Reicha, and Sedlacek in the cemetery. The church membership doubled by 1908. In 1914, volunteers hauled bricks and other materials to this site and built the present Late Gothic Revival church, which was completed that year.