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Perry County Heritage Tourism and the Perryville Area Chamber of Commerce are offering a historic and sometimes spiritual journey as sort of a kickoff the Christmas season with the 15th annual Christmas Country Church Tour.
The church tour begins on Thursday, Dec. 12 and concludes on Friday, Dec. 13 from 2-9 p.m. on both nights.
The event is a self-guided driving tour that allows participants the chance to visit a number of rural churches decked out in Christmas decorations.
“We don’t want these churches to go above and beyond what they normally do when they decorate for the holidays,” Director of Heritage Tourism Trish Erzfeld said. “We want the people to experience the environment that these churches have year-round. Some churches do go all-out for this however.”
Last year, there were 33 such churches and there were five churches added to the participating churches in Ste. Genevieve, and even Kaskaskia, Ill. There are now 38 churches that span multiple counties and two states.
“These churches see the impact that they have on the area and they want to be a part of it,” Erzfeld said. “We try not to get too commercialized.”
The churches on this tour have a great deal of history that visitors are often interested in. Most of the churches are over 100 years old. Some are rapidly approaching 200 years old. Brazeau Presbyterian Church and Old McKendree Chapel in Jackson will celebrate their 200th year anniversaries this year. Some of them have also been key in bringing certain denominations and traditions to the region. For example, St. Mary’s of the Barrens Catholic Church Association of the Miraculous Medal was the first seminary west of the Mississippi River, the Lutheran Heritage Center and Log Cabin College in Altenburg led to the birth of the Missouri Senate Lutheran Church, and the Old McKendree Chapel was the first Protestant church to be established west of the Mississippi River. Of the 38 churches in the tour only three have not been around for more than one century.
“There is a deep religious history in all these churches,” Erzfeld said. “We want to be able to bring this out and what better time to do that than during Christmas,”
Many of the churches vary on size from a single room to multi-story cathedrals.
Each church on the tour has a registry book that visitors are encouraged to sign. In doing this, can also tell where they are visiting from, giving Perry County Heritage Tourism and the Chamber of Commerce a better idea of how many people attended and where the attendees are from.
“Not everyone that attends the tour is from Perryville,” Erzfeld said. “We have people from all over the country that come and see the tour. It’s really a cool event and one that I’m always excited about.”
Everyone is welcome to go on the tour, and the Chamber of Commerce has maps available. Digital copies can also be found online at www.visitperrycounty.com or the Christmas Country Church Tour page on Facebook.
