Writing in 1997, Jewish-American historian of America's religious architecture Marilyn J. Chiat described the early history of the region as follows, "Father Francis X. Pierz, a missionary to Indians in central Minnesota, published a series of articles in 1851 in German Catholic newspapers advocating Catholic settlement in central Minnesota.

Stearns County retains in its German character and is still home to one of the largest rural Catholic populations in Anglo-America.

Pierz accidentally found a German language holy card dedicated to St. Augustine lying in the nearby field previously chosen for the building of their parish church.

Raised in Orthodox Judaism, Mayer had converted to Roman Catholicism before his marriage to Dutch-American Gentile Elizabeth Hagedorn in Mercer County, Ohio.

He always retained, however, a very strong sense of pride in his Jewish ancestry and, shortly before his death on 4 July 1890, Mayer asked for his kippah, sat up in his deathbed, and sang two traditional blessings from the Hebrew Bible as an expression of his love for his family and his hopes for their future.

Baldassar Mayer sang Eshet Ḥayil (Hebrew: אשת חיל, "Woman of Valor") Book of Proverbs Chapter 31 Verses 10–31, over his wife, and Birkut Kohanim (Hebrew: ברכת כהנים, "The Priestly Blessing"), Book of Numbers Chapter 6 Verses 23-27, over their many children and grandchildren.

[9] Just as similarly to other communities in rural Stearns County during the Prohibition era, St. Augusta was a center for the secret distilling of a very high quality form of moonshine called Minnesota 13.

According to local historian Sr. Janice Wedl, O.S.B., "People did get thirsty and made their own beer and hard liquor to drink and to sell.

[12] The city contains one property listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the 1873 St. Mary Help of Christians Church and its 1890 rectory.

[14] The Christian pilgrimage shrine (German: Wahlfahrtsort)[15] (German: Gnadenkapelle)[16][17] known as St. Boniface Chapel was built in 1877, similarly to the far more famous "Assumption Chapel" near Cold Spring, as a desperate petition for divine intervention from the Rocky Mountain locusts; a now extinct species of giant grasshopper, whose enormous migrating swarms blotted out the sunlight and, as described in the novel On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder, devastated farming communities throughout North America between 1856 and 1902.

has written about the four-year-long Locust Plague of 1874, "These huge insects destroyed everything in their path - crops, clothing hanging on wash lines, even fence posts.

Though people flailed at the insects, the swarms were so extensive, so pervasive that they had little hope of salvaging their lives without Divine help.

The parishioners of St. Augusta and Luxemburg made a pledge to build a chapel and every year make a pilgrimage to it to pray that any future plagues be averted.

"[18] Local farmer Henry Kaeter donated a plot of land[18] "half-way between their parish churches - on a small tree-crowned hill".

Robert J. Voigt, "The women decorated the chapel with flowers and choirs took their turn in singing and brought an organ along... Close to a hundred people, representing virtually every family, came.

[22] Local pilgrims praying the rosary upon St. Boniface's Day, would also add, following every Hail Mary, the additional petition, (German: "Heilige Bonifacius, bitte für uns!")

Coleman J. Barry, there is traditionally a very intensive rivalry between parish choirs in Stearns County German culture.

Hellebusch's Katholisches Gesang und Gebet Buch and the six Sing Messen found therein until the Regensburg-style of Gregorian Chant was introduced beginning in the 1880s.

Parish choir-directors often doubled as local school-masters and were traditionally referred to as, (German: die Kirchen Väter), or "The Church Fathers".

Colman J. Barry, this represented a continuation of the tradition of parish feast day picnics and old country festivals that, very similarly to the Pennsylvania Dutch Fersommling, remained a central pillar of Stearns County German culture.

Barry, "These celebrations were always informal, and were not limited only to fairs but were held also on Christmas, New Years Day, Fastnacht or Shrove Tuesday, and at the end of the harvest season, Kirchweih Fest, the time when they had first dedicated their hard won churches to God.

The pastors always attended, and favorite characters of the community were called upon to do stunts or recite poems of their childhood days in Europe.

[27] Sometimes, similarly to traditional Irish Pattern Days, rivalry between the two parishes would sometimes result in fist fights during the dinner, particularly when alcohol was involved.

The writer is reminded of what Joseph Knoll of Pierz told him years ago, (German: 'Sogar beim Begräbnis müß man Spaß haben, sonst geht niemand mit') ('Even at a funeral, there must be some pleasure; otherwise nobody will attend').

"[31] In 1937, the Henry Kaeter farm was purchased by Martin Libbesmeier, who was intrigued to discover the disused and crumbling chapel near his home.

This had very little to do with the pervasive anti-German sentiment and atrocity propaganda spread by both Wellington House and President Woodrow Wilson during the First World War, or even with the latter's regular denunciation of all allegedly Hyphenated Americans or with his support for the use of coercion in the schools by adherents of the English only movement.

The real cause was the widespread shame, horror, self-hatred, and embarrassment felt by most German-Americans over Adolf Hitler's Enabling Act of 1933, the Nuremberg Laws, and, most of all, over the subversive domestic activities of the German-American Bund, the Silver Legion, and other Fascistic organizations receiving covert funding from the new police state in Nazi Germany.

Severin Schwieters was influential in convincing his parishioners that the chapel was a highly important local heritage monument and needed to be restored.

[36] In 2014, the species of insects which was once numerous enough to block out the sun and reduce farm families throughout North America to the brink of starvation was formally declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.