- Bay View - Milwaukee
A great place to worship and grow

The Church

History of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Milwaukee

    The Church now known as St. Luke’s Episcopal Church was erected by six Englishmen who came to Milwaukee from Stratford, England, about 1870. These men, having been hired along with others to work in the steel mills located on Lake Michigan, decided to build a church in what would become the Bay View area or Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
    After a series of meetings in would-be parishioners' homes, the Episcopal Diocese helped this group to purchase land and build a small wooden church on the corner of Russell and Clement Avenue. The Church opened as a "mission church" at that site in 1873.
    After many years, in 1928, Father G. White brought the mission church to Parish status, making St. Luke’s Episcopal Church an independent venture. At that point, the Church was already well-known in the Bay View community. Local groups were already using it as their meeting places on a regular basis. Outreach programs, church bazaars, and a vibrant Sunday School program made St. Luke’s a popular institution in the neighborhood.
    Between 1951 and 1955, the current church building was constructed at the corner of Herman Street and Euclid in Milwaukee, not far from the original site. In 1963, the youth building was added to the Church to fill the block between Euclid and Clement Avenue.
    St. Luke’s continues to be very involved in the community with such Outreach programs as being the meeting place for Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, and as the home of Kids’ Kloset, an outreach program designed by St. Luke’s to help to clothe needy children and provide layettes for newborns in need throughout the metropolitan Milwaukee area. Also, many church groups are very active within the parish, including The Brotherhood of St. Andrew, whose purpose is to bring men and youth to Jesus Christ. Women of the Parish have two groups which meet regularly and provide integral services to the Parish Family: Episcopal Church Women and St. Cecilia’s Guild.
    The current Vicar of St. Luke’s is Fr. Michael Gray-Fow, Ph.D., a native of England. He was installed in 1998. It was in that year that St. Luke’s Episcopal Church celebrated its 125^th Anniversary in the month of October. Fr. Michael has been very active in the ministry of St. Luke’s and has helped the Parish see its way to the bright future that lies ahead.
    St. Luke's is also blessed in having as its Deacon the Rev. John Goeb, who has served in the parish for many years, and was made Canon on September 10th, 2000.