The prairie gothic Episcopal church with wooden buttresses is a unique structure in the area. Built in 1868, it was intended for English-speaking persons. However, the area was settled primarily by German and Irish immigrants who brought their own worship practices to the community.

The beginnings of this parish reach back to November, 1854, when the itinerant missionary priest, Reverend Timothy Wilcox, of St. Paul, visited the home of Territorial Judge Andrew Gould Chattfield, founder of Belle Plaine.

In 1858 and 1859, the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota was formed and the Reverend Mark Olds organized the Belle Plaine congregation. He filed the first Parochial Report to the Diocese in 1860. The church structure was built in 1868, on land contributed by Judge Chattfield, during the rectorate of Reverend Thomas Dickey who also served St. John's in Le Sueur, St. Jude's in Henderson, and occasionally held services at Blakeley.

The peak years for this parish immediately followed the consecration of the building on September 28, 1870. The 1871 Parochial Report to the Diocese showed 16 families with a total of 70 members. A membership that was never exceed.

By 1890, the number of members had dwindled to nine families and 44 parishioners. The membership remained fairly constant through the 1920's, when it fell to five families and 23 members. At the time the church was closed in the 1950's, there were fewer than a dozen members.

Having survived the halting blows of the Panic of 1857, the Dakota Conflict of 1862, and the Civil War, having built a magnificent edifice and having railroad connection with the Twin Cities and Fairbault, site of the Diocesan Cathedral and Seabury Seminary, this parish seemed to be well poised for growth which never came. A variety of reasons for its lack of growth can be offered.

The new waves of immigrants in the 1860's and 1870's were coming in large number from Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Czechoslovakia. These Lutheran and Roman Catholic immigrants brought their own clergy and formed ethnic churches. They had no need for an English-speaking Episcopal church. The English stayed in the East and in larger cities where opportunities benefited English speakers. Also, the English now had other church options - Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and others. For some, the Episcopal church had an aristocratic image which made it seem incompatible with the rugged requirements of frontier life.

The limited size of the Transfiguration congregation resulted in a pattern of exogamous marriage and being served by nonresident clergy whose multi-parish responsibilities understandably limited time and energy to develop leadership and programs. Limited numbers also meant vulnerability to the ups and downs of the general economy. The panics of 1857, 1873, and 1893, crop failures and the Great Depression, were tough on struggling rural churches.

The 1950's brought the disbanding of the congregation and the official closing of the church, followed by physical deterioration and vandalism. Since the 1970's the Scott County Historical Society has worked to save this nineteenth century structure. Restoration worked included stabilizing and strengthening the structure, wooden buttresses and roof were replaced, bell tower and entrance porch rebuilt, frosted art glass restored, Plexiglas installed over the windows, exterior painted to the original colors, interior woodwork cleaned, walls repaired plastered and painted, the organ was restored.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the church is located on the corner of Church and Walnut streets in Belle Plaine.