A group of Finnish immigrants organized the Jacobsville Finnish Lutheran congregation in 1886, holding early worship services in various locations until a simple frame church was built in 1888. The congregation helped organize the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church-Suomi Synod in 1890, and the church was set atop its stone foundation in 1891, with its tower and bell added in 1892. One of the oldest remaining structures in the community, the well-preserved church retains its original furnishings, kerosene lamps, and woodstove, and has neither electricity nor plumbing. In 1952 the congregation and church property became part of the Gloria Dei Lutheran congregation of Hancock, and in the 1980s the church continued to be used for summer vesper services. In the Jacobsville area, George Craig, Sr., was the first settler, arriving in the mid-nineteenth century, but the unincorporated community itself began in 1884 when John H. Jacobs of Marquette opened sandstone quarries nearby. From 1884 to 1919 the quarries supplied high quality red stone for buildings across North America and abroad, shipping some 800,000 tons for projects including the first Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Populated mostly by Finns, Jacobsville reached its peak around 1897 with 800 inhabitants, and the Finnish Lutheran congregation remained a major force in preserving Finnish culture and ethnic solidarity a century later.