The Story of Sioux County by Charles L. Dyke, Orange City, Iowa Second Edition, 1942 page 140 

CHURCHES. The First Reformed Church of Orange City. 

The First Reformed church of Orange City was the first church organization in Sioux county and it dates from early spring in 1871. 

The first elders were: Tjeerd Heemstra, Gerrit Van De Steeg and Martin Ver Heul and Sjoerd Sipma, Jelle Pelmulder and Walter Van Rooyen were the first deacons. In the first years of the colony the religious exercises consisted of the reading of sermons by the elders and deacons, and preaching by an occasional visiting minister. 

In the spring of 1872 the Reverend Seine Bolks of Zeeland, Michigan, was called to the pastorate and he accepted the call. The first two years meetings were held in the school house but in the fall of 1873 plans for the erection of a church building were laid and the buidling of the edifice began in the early spring of 1874. 

When the framework was just up, a heavy wind storm blew it down, causing considerable damage and delay. But it was finished during the summer of that year. Pioneer Otto Rouwenhorst and sons, Klass, Marinus, and Hein, were the contractors and builders. 

This was the first church organization in Sioux county and it built the first church. 

page 144-145 THE NEW CHURCH DEDICATED. 

When the First Reformed church at Orange City was under construction, it was a great event for Orange City, for the little frame shacks that had been built for residences and business places had now in their midst a courthouse and would soon have a church that dwarfed them all and gave the village more the appearance of a little town where the people of the county would congregate on both week days and Sundays. Consequently the building of the edifice was the object of discussion all ovr the county. The contractor and his helpers were looked upon as real men of accomplishmen and daring to undertake such an enterprise. 

Pioneer Rouwenhorst and his sons, Klaas and Marinus were the carpenters while Hein drove the team that did the hoisting. Marinus Rouwenhorst, a daring little fellow, delighted to entertain the school boys and others with aerial tricks and would stand on one foot on the top of the steeple waving a flag, while the onlookers gasped. The steeple then was just as high as it is now. It was once wrecked by lightning but rebuilt just as it was originally. The big brass ball and the weathervane on the steeple are still the same that swam in the air sixty-four years ago and it has also the same bell. The church was just as long when it was built, as now. Only the side wings and the consistory room were added later. It was quite a building for a new country and the whole Dutch settlement was proud of it.