The intersection of Turney and Granger Roads, called German Corners in the 1800s and later South Newburgh Centre, developed within a farm community settled by Germans. Turney Road was first known as State Road and then Fisher Road before being named for Joseph Turney, an area resident and two-term treasurer of Ohio. Granger Road was named for John Albert Granger, a major pioneer landowner and the third son of Gideon Granger, an original investor in the Connecticut Land Company and U. S. Postmaster General under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. St. John Lutheran Church, school, and cemetery were established here by German settlers, and a nearby house built in 1890 for German teachers later became the Garfield Heights Historical Society Museum. In January 1854, a German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of St. John was organized in Independence Township by men who were largely immigrants from northwestern Germany who had come to Cleveland and later moved to outlying townships, including Independence. The first church site stood on the southeast corner of the present-day Turney and Granger Road intersection on land purchased from John Henry Weber, who had bought it in 1852 from John Albert Granger. The church was dedicated on October 14, 1854, with Reverend John Strieter as its first pastor, and a school was organized within a week of the first sermon.