Located on high ground above the Des Plaines River, St. James Church at Sag Bridge is one of the oldest churches in the Chicago area. First discovered by explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673, the area didn’t attract many settlers until the Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed. Established in 1833, a log cabin became the first St. James Church. Second generation farmers and settlers took on the task of creating a proper church building, creating the present church of Athens marble, and finishing the interior with wooden altars, trimmed in gold paint. Toiling for six years, the dedicated group of workers were rewarded with burial plots at the church cemetery. The first resident pastor arrived in 1882, and initiated a church addition for overflow of new church members.
     The Old Stone Church, as it’s labeled on a Chicago map, received numerous changes and improvements over the years. In the 1990s, an ambitious effort to restore the church to its original look was undertaken. The marvelous restoration project was complete just in time for its 165th anniversary. Known locally as St. James, The Sag, this unusual name references the nearby Saganashkee Slough, one of the area's natural ponds adjacent the Calumet Sag Canal.