In their wake came several Iroquois from New York state, who had followed the Hudson’s Bay Company out west into Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. They married into the local Salish tribe and regaled their adopted people with tales of the East.
Tribesmen were awed by legends of “black robes”— white men who wore long, black gowns, carried golden crucifixes, and remained wifeless because of a vow to spread word of the Great Spirit who granted life after death.
The Salish sent delegates eastward to learn more. Their curiosity was satisfied with the 1841 arrival of a Belgian-born Jesuit, Father Pierre DeSmet, and others under his charge.
With the Bitterroot Range as their witness, the clerics founded Montana’s first permanent white settlement near present-day Stevensville. They built a mission along the Bitterroot River and named it St. Mary’s.
In 1845, DeSmet and a small group ventured west toward the present-day Washington-Idaho border. There, they established the first St. Ignatius Mission in homage to the Jesuit Society’s founder, St. Ignatius Loyola. But the site was not well chosen, so, in 1854, the mission was relocated to the foothills of the Mission Range, some |
50 miles north of St. Mary’s. Within a year, more than 1000 Indians of different tribes called St. Ignatius home.
Meanwhile, St. Mary’s was upgraded until its third iteration burned to the ground during the 1850s. In 1866, one of DeSmet’s disciples, Father Anthony Ravalli, built a fourth chapel that survives to this day.
A nearby graveyard consecrates Ravalli’s remains, while aging stone markers commemorate long-dead settlers and Indians. A large wooden cross, erected recently, honors the many natives who converted and died under St. Mary’s gaze.
By the 1890s, St. Ignatius’ parishioners wanted a larger facility and built a new mission using a million bricks of local clay. The structure, completed in 1893, stands today within the town that bears its name.
Inside, the church’s curved ceiling and massive walls are adorned with 58 colorful frescoes. A cook, brother Joseph Carignano, labored for 14 months—from 1903 until 1905—to beautify the building.
Today St. Ignatius’ splendor and St. Mary’s rustic charm stand watch over oblivious motorists and remind visitors that the West was won with more than guns; it was also blazed with a cross.
Historic St. Mary’s Mission’s tour season extends from April 15 through October 15 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Visitors are welcome to stroll the grounds, but need to be accompanied by one of the onsite guides to access the buildings of the mission complex. The tour begins in the Visitor Center, which includes a museum, art gallery, and gift shop. |
St. Ignatius Mission is open daily for visitors and for those who wish to worship privately; hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in summer and 9 a.m .to 5 p.m. in winter. The log house, built in 1854 for the Jesuits, is now a museum open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Memorial Day to Labor Day along with the Providence Sister’s home built in 1864. Sunday Mass is celebrated at 9:15 a.m.
For more information, contact Historic St. Mary’s (406-777-5734; www.saintmarysmission.org) and St. Ignatius (406-745-2768; mission7@blackfoot.net).
Story By Holden Parrish
Northwest Travel May/June 2007
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