Albany Park Lutheran Church

Albany Park Lutheran Church was organized on Feb. 8, 1917 as Lutheran Olavus Petri Church, as a member of the Augustana Synod. It changed its name to Albany Park Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1923 and to All Saints Lutheran in 1987. It disbanded in January 1998.

The extension of the Ravenswood-Albany Park branch of the elevated railway reached the corner of Kimball and Lawrence Ave. in the 1910s. This fueled development in the neighborhood, including a growing Swedish population. The Augustana Synod's Northern Chicago District of the Illinois Conference sent Dr. Philip Andreen in 1916 as a missionary to the Albany Park district. On December 3, 1916, he held the first service in Terminal Hall, 3314 Lawrence Ave. Formal organization took place on Feb. 8, 1917 with the name Olavus Petri adopted in honor of the leader of the Reformation in Sweden.

Purchasing the lot on the southwest corner of Ainslie and Sawyer from Albany Park Prebyterian, construction was completed on August 5, 1917.

It sold its building shortly before the stock market crash in 1929. The congregation built its Tudor Gothic sanctuary at 3311 W. Thorndale Ave., at Spaulding Ave., and dedicated it on Sept. 28, 1930.

Pastors
Philip Andreen	Dec. 1916-June 1921
Herbert W. Linden	May 1922-1942

Original records
Original record books for Albany Park Lutheran are at the ELCA Region 5 Archives in Dubuque, Iowa. Membership records from 1916-1947 and church minutes from 1917-1923 have been microfilmed on Augustana A1 and are available from the ELCA Archives and the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center in Rock Island, Ill. The ELCA Archives also has congregational histories and miscellaneous issues of church publications, including vår Kyrka and Olavus Petri Messenger.

Sources
Tenth Anniversary of the Albany Park Lutheran Church, 1927.

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Albany Park Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1942.