In the 1800s, the intersection of Turney and Granger Roads was called German Corners and later became known as South Newburgh Centre. 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 the state of Ohio. Granger Road was named after John Albert Granger, a major pioneer landowner in the area 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 in this farm community, 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 mostly immigrants from northwestern Germany who came to Cleveland and later moved to outlying townships, including Independence. The first church site was chosen 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 the first pastor, and within a week of the first sermon a school was organized.