St. Joe, Illinois, lay in what was originally the New Design Precinct, a name associated with James Lemen, Sr. and his plan to establish a settlement south of Bellefontaine (Waterloo). This settlement, populated largely by emigrants from Kentucky and Virginia, became one of the largest colonies in Illinois, and later settlers in the St. Joe area were part of German immigration in the mid-1800's. At one time St. Joe had several churches, multiple homes, the Harrisonville Telephone Exchange building, and the St. Joe Tavern, and in 1916 a local newspaper noted that the Kaskaskia-Cahokia Trail passed almost through the center of the district and that the good roads movement might help turn the trail into a good highway. The Lutheran church site in St. Joe stood across the road from the current Zion UCC and was originally served by Rev. G. Birkner of Wartburg, who also served Lutheran congregations at Deer Hill and Maeystown; charter members included Samuel Koch, Frederick Koch, Peter Dann, and Carl Hartmann. In 1880 the St. Joe Lutheran Church disbanded, its building was moved to Renault, and that congregation later became the nucleus of the present Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Renault; after the Renault congregation built a new church, the original St. Joe church building was used as a school for many years, and a cemetery remains behind the former Lutheran church location in St. Joe. Zion Evangelical Church was organized in 1860 after Carl Hartmann split from the Lutheran congregation, with the first Evangelical services held in his home; he later provided land for the first Evangelical church in November, 1861. The church serving the current Zion United Church of Christ congregation was built in 1884, bears a historic rooster on its steeple in a tradition brought by German settlers, and continued on as other UCC congregations folded, receiving new members after the closure of St. Peter's UCC in Burksville in 1989 and, after the 1993 Flood and the closure of St. John UCC in Fults, members from that congregation as well.