St. Paul's Mission

St. Paul's Mission was a Jesuit mission church established in the Hudson's Bay Company's (HBC) Columbia District, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in the 1830s. The mission was built near the HBC's Fort Colville, on the bluff then overlooking Kettle Falls on the Columbia River. The building still stands today.HistoryBoth Catholic and Protestant missionaries visited Kettle Falls several times from 1836 on, attempting to convert natives to Christianity.The first missionaries, representatives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and sponsored by the Presbyterians and Congregationalists, arrived in 1836. They were unable to baptize any Indians.Catholic missionaries, led by French-Canadian Fathers François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, arrived in 1838. They delivered the first Catholic mass between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range in 1839 and baptized 19 Indians, but were unable to establish a permanent mission. Their efforts were more focused on St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, in the Willamette Valley.