From Mygatt's Corners to 16th St. and Highway 31

Mount Pleasant Lutheran Church (MPLC) officially became an independent congregation on April 29, 1956 after nine years as a “daughter church” to Racine’s Atonement Lutheran Church. At that time, the congregation gathered in an older church building first constructed in 1858 at the southwest corner of Green Bay Road and Plank Road (current location of Denny’s Restaurant and Midas), an intersection that was known locally as Mygatt’s Corners.

Undated photo of “Mygatt’s Corners Lutheran Church” at Highways 31 and 20.

In June of 1972, MPLC voted to purchase property on the southwest corner of 16th St. and Highway 31 on which to build a new church building. After selling and moving from the Mygatt’s Corners Church, and while the new church building was being constructed, the congregation held worship services at neighboring congregation Bethania Lutheran Church (4120 Wright Ave) for over a year. Construction began in September of 1974. In September 1975, MPLC moved into the current sanctuary, which was officially dedicated on November 9, 1975.

In the new building, one room was named “Mygatts Corner” in honor of the earlier church site. The room was used at first as a lounge and a place for the choir to practice before worship. Today, “Mygatts,” located on the Fellowship Hall level, is used for mainly for classes and meetings. A plaque on a large rock near the labyrinth garden commemorates the church’s connection with Mygatts Corners and Wallace Mygatt, for whom they were named.

Plaque, originally mounted at the corner of Highways 31 and 20, shown at its current location in the church gardens, 2025.

The plaque reads:

This marker is dedicated to the memory of Wallace Mygatt, who settled here in 1836, for whom these corners are named.

To the memory of the men and women of Mount Pleasant Township who settled here a century ago and erected these church buildings on this old Indian trail now known as the Green Bay Road over which the first mail was carried from Chicago to Green Bay.

Placed by Racine Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution in honor of the Wisconsin Centennial, 1948-1948.