It was with joy and thankfulness that the Lutherans dedicated their new church in Osborn on Nov. 27, 1898.

Located in the middle of fertile farm lands, with the clear waters of the Mad river coursing near by, Osborn was a growing and attractive village.

As had been predicted the coming of the Mad river and Lake Erie Railroad had spurred the development of Osborn.  There were two mills in operation most of the time.  In the late 1880's Osborn was the site of the Ohio Whip Co., the Midwest’s largest producer of buggy whips.  The first house was built in 1850 and by 1879 the population was nearly 700; by 1910 it was 856.  Osborn was the most important village along the Ohio electric Interurban line between Dayton and Springfield. One newspaper story described Osborn as being surrounded by the most fertile lands and beautiful farms to be found anywhere in the Mad River Valley, “and was looked upon by all who knew the town as one of the most picturesque and pretty hamlets of its size to be found anywhere in the state.”

A young expanding village; a growing congregation in a beautiful new church which was becoming pre-eminent in the life of the community, Osborn was experiencing the good years.  In 1913 two days of rain and its devastating aftermath turned the good days into the worst of times.

The rains came, 9-11 inches of rain on March 23-27, 1913, and they fell at a most dangerous time.  The winter’s snow and ice and melted and saturated the ground; it could not absorb any more water.  Creeks rose and dumped their waters into rivers - four angry rivers which disgorged their churning flotsam into the Great Miami river within less than a mile of each other in downtown Dayton.

“All together nearly four trillion gallons of water, an amount equivalent to about thirty days’ discharge of water over Niagara Falls, flowed through the Miami Valley during the ensuing flood....

“Everywhere the flood brought disaster.  Rising rapidly, it drove people to seek shelter in trees, on roofs, in attics where they awaited rescue.  Rushing, Torrentially the waters swept away bridges, dwellings, and commercial buildings - and anyone who was in them.  It precipitated fires at broken gas mains, which spread when fed by spilled gasoline.”  (Keeping the Promise, Becker and Nolan, 1987)

The death toll was terrible.  Up river 49 people died in Piqua; Troy counted at least 14 dead.  In Dayton, the flood claimed 123 people.  The death toll in Hamilton was 106.  The deaths in Indiana and Ohio from the Great Dayton flood totaled 732.  When it was over the cry from citizens was “Never again!”

The Miami Conservancy District’s flood control project had as its centerpiece “the construction of the storage reservoirs, the so-called ‘dry dams’...through the interrelationship of channels, levees, and conduits they kept flood waters temporarily in a basin to release them downstream at a controlled rate.”

The pools formed behind the dams would dissipate in a few hours and during most of the year the land there would be usable for farming or recreation but not for permanent habitation.

Five dams would be built. One — Huffman Dam — would control the water flow of the mad river.  One community in northwest Bath township in Greene County lay on the flood plain — the village of Osborn.

Osborn faced extinction.  Everything in the village would be submerged after the construction of Huffman Dam.  While a few low, outlying fields had some standing water Osborn had not been touched by the 1913 flood.  Engineers agreed that “not one in a century, perhaps, were the dam-retained waters liable to back up to Osborn...but should another deluge sweep the valley nothing in the village would escape...the tallest church steeple would be nine feet under water."

The Conservancy district announced it would buy the houses in Osborn, but residents would have to move.  It was a devastating blow.  Of similar heartache for congregational members was the knowledge that their Lutheran Church would be no more.

These bleak times of stress and difficult decisions became even more tense and worrisome when the United States entered world War I and Americans were sent to battlefields in Europe.  Pastor Crowell took a leave of absence to become an Army chaplain.  When he returned from service there still was no decision on a course of action.

During the intervening years — nine since the flood — there had been much discussion about moving the village.  The Miami Conservancy District bought the homes at what were generally considered to be fair prices.  They were “sold back” to the owners who were permitted to occupy them during the construction of the giant dams.  The agonizing decisions of relocation were delayed by many Osbornites.  The best location for a new church — if there was to be one — was also up in the air.

In his records of this period, Pastor Crowell wrote: “For nine years the matter of the future of the village was a debatable question, and if a debatable question, certainly a debated question, for surely none has ever received more discussion than has the question of our fate. Year in, year out it has been the one subject, old yet new, which has received a patient hearing wherever it has been discussed.  Indeed it has oftimes become a weariness to the flesh to be asked the question when Osborne has been mentioned, ‘Oh that is the town which is to be moved, isn’t it?’

“During these years fifty families have been lost to the Church or Sunday school and have one to homes in distant places.  We have lost five members of the Church council; Two SS. Supts.; An organist; eight or ten members of the Church Choir; Supt. Of graded dept. Of the Sunday School; President of the Missionary Society; financial Secy.; Chorister of the Church; Many outstanding members of the Teaching force of the Sunday School and various workers who have gone to other fields.  Most of them have gone to Springfield and the fourth Church of that place has profited most of all by a great many of our people having allied themselves with the Church.”    

Pastor Crowell had offers of different ministries.  At one time he had “tentatively accepted a call to the university Church in Columbus, Ohio,” but owing to advice to the Council from the secretary of the Miami Conservancy board, his resignation was not accepted and he was urged to decline the call.  Other such opportunities were turned aside so that he might see the congregation through its difficult days.

On coming back from the military Pastor Crowell felt as if the village would be razed “and all idea of a new one seemed to have died out.  Soon however, the idea revived and many, who were not interested in such enterprise, found homes elsewhere.  Then the matter of the future of the church became an important issue.  Would there be enough Lutherans to justify the building of a Church?  No one could answer that for no one know what time would bring forth or who would stay and who would go.  All agreed that there would never be any effort to build a Church unless there was promise of a future, and the assurance that if it were built that it could be maintained.  Accordingly that if justified in doing so, a Lutheran Church would be erected in the mad River Valley, but if there was any question as to the ability of the people to adequately support the same, then the funds in possession of the Congregation were to be used in erecting an Osborne Memorial Building at the Oesterlen Home in Springfield.”

But a unique idea of the organizers of the Osborn Removal Co. was gaining more support and capturing the imagination of the adventurous.  The grand plan was to establish a new town on a very favorable location next to the village of Fairfield.  The company bought a 135 acre farm southeast of Fairfield, and the 230 houses which made up Osborn.  A way was found to maintain corporate identity, the post office, and insurance.  A strip of land leading from the old village to the location of the new site was annexed by the village council.  When the move was completed the old location and the long, narrow land bridge which permitted the move were given up.

“It was necessary to comply with the laws in this way in order to retain the original charter and keep possession of the money in the town treasury and in the school fund.  If the original charter had been surrendered and a new one granted for the new site, this money could not be transferred but would revert to the township.”  (Popular Mechanics, September 1922)

“The only lots reserved at the new site were those to be occupied by the four churches and by the business houses...The churches could be located anywhere outside the business block.” (Ibid.)

On April 20, 1920, upon returning from his military service Pastor Crowell gave a bleak, discouraging assessment of the church’s future.  He wrote; “Many changes have taken place during my absence.  The church building is no longer ours.  Familiar faces are gone, some to their Last Home in Heaven. Others to new homes in this world.  The work now becomes a struggle for existence.  While I am again taking up the work, after the splendid work of Dr. Larimer during my absence, I can never take it up as I left it.  War and local conditions make that impossible, but I shall try honestly to serve faithfully until the way is opened for me to place the work in other hands.” 

Later developments were brighter. In the summer of 1922 the congregation directed the council to purchase lots in the new town site and prepare to build a new church.  Robert Gotwald, a Springfield architect, was hired to draw plans for a new church.

Pastor Crowell reporting what had taken place in making the decision to build wrote, “the struggle for existence has been successful...”two of our young men, Mr. Harry Dellinger and Mr. Waldo Zeller (our first boy in the U.S. Army) spoke most encouragingly at a time when the zeal of the older members sadly lagged, and their appeal to go on, finally sanctioned and the council ordered to proceed.  (Waldo Zeller was the father of Richard Zeller, a member of the present congregation.  Harry Dellinger was the father of St. Mark’s Phillip Dellinger.  Harry Dellinger would become city manager of Osborn, Fairborn City Manager, and mayor of Fairborn.) This we have done and a splendid building has been planned....Not all we could have hoped for, perhaps, but our best under the circumstances, and surely such a one able to care for the needs at the present time and years yet in the future.  I have many things  which I have longed for but our finances will not admit of having them.

“My earnest prayer is that God will bless our efforts,“ Pastor Crowell wrote, ”and that the building which we erect may be for the glory of His Holy Name and His Salvation of men’s souls.  And may the work now being done by a sure foundation upon which the future work may stand secure until the end.”

Pastor Crowell wrote those words on May 19, 1923, the day before they were deposited in the cornerstone of the new church in new Osborn.

On Dec. 23, 1923, St. Mark’s members met in the basement of their new church with gifted electric power supplied through the meter of neighboring St. Mary’s Help of Christian Catholic Church.

The service, two days before the celebration of the nativity, was the first to be held in the new church.

For the St. Mark’s congregation it gave a very special meaning to “Joy to the World.”