Church of St. John the Baptist (Burlington, Iowa)
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Church of St. John the Baptist
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The Church of St John the Baptist in 2013.
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| Location | 712 Division St. Burlington, Iowa |
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| Coordinates | 40°48′27.97″N 91°6′31.83″W / 40.8077694°N 91.1088417°WCoordinates: 40°48′27.97″N 91°6′31.83″W / 40.8077694°N 91.1088417°W |
| Area | 2 acres (0.81 ha) |
| Built | 1883-1885 |
| Architect | Johann Dillenburg |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 82002615 |
| Added to NRHP | February 26, 1982 |
The Church of St. John the Baptist is an historic church building located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. Together with St. Paul's Church it forms Saints John and Paul parish, which is a part of the Diocese of Davenport. The parish maintains both of the former parish church buildings as worship sites. St. John's is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
St. John the Baptist parish was started in 1852 to serve the town’s growing German community. Father Reffe, who had previously been at St Paul’s, was assigned as St. John’s first pastor. A church was finished by 1856 when there were forty to fifty families in the parish. They were part of the large number of German immigrants who settled in Burlington in the 1840s and 1850s. A school building was completed the following year and the School Sisters of Notre Dame served as teachers. St. John's Academy was completed in 1875. By 1879 the parish had grown to 200 families, and by 1888 it had 2,000 individual members. Its growth reflected that by the 1880s 60% of Burlington's population were ethnic Germans.
In 1876 Bishop John Hennessey of Dubuque gave the pastoral care of the parish to the Jesuits. They were later followed by Benedictines from St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas. Priests from the Davenport Diocese, which the parish became a part of in 1881, started serving the parish in 1990.
The first merger of the Catholic Community in Burlington happened in the parochial schools. Both St. John’s and St. Paul’s operated parish-based high schools. Those separate operations merged in 1958 with the opening of Notre Dame High School on the city’s west side. The two parishes continued to operate their own grade schools until the late 1970s when they were consolidated. St. Paul’s School was the site for kindergarten through 4th Grade and St. John’s housed grades five through eight. The school at Burlington’s third parish, St. Patrick’s, and the school at St. Mary’s in West Burlington had both closed in 1969. In the 1990s a fund drive was held and a new grade school wing was added at Notre Dame. St. John's School was torn down to make room for more parking.
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