Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church was formally incorporated on January 18, 1889, by a congregation made up mostly of German Lutheran immigrants from the district of Saxon-Weimar-Eisenach who had settled in the Jacksonport area. That spring, the newly organized congregation began building a forty-by-twenty-eight-foot wood-frame church with locally donated logs. John and Rose Anschutz provided the land, Ernest Wiegand the foundation, John Flock the lime, and Henry Anschutz a week's labor, while six hundred dollars was raised through the sale of cordwood, the area's primary cash crop. During the winter of 1890, the congregation obtained bricks for a chimney and paid Hans Johnson to build the altar, pulpit, and pews, and the interior lath and plaster was completed the following spring when warmer weather arrived.