St. Paul's Mission, Historical mission site in Kettle Falls, United States.
St. Paul's Mission is a hand-hewn log church built in 1847 near Fort Colville, on a bluff overlooking Kettle Falls on the Columbia River. It replaced a small log chapel erected in 1845 after Father DeSmet preached to the Sxoielpi (Colville Indians). The building was damaged by fire in 1910 and restored in 1939–40.
Protestant missionaries reached Kettle Falls in 1836 but baptized no one. Catholic priests François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers arrived in 1838 and held the first mass between the Rockies and the Cascades in 1839, baptizing 19 Indians. After Father DeSmet preached to the Sxoielpi in August 1845, a log chapel was built; the present hand-hewn log church replaced it two years later. Abandoned around 1869, it was damaged by fire in 1910 and restored in 1939–40.
The church served the Sxoielpi (Colville) people, to whom Belgian Jesuit Father DeSmet preached in August 1845, prompting the first small log chapel. Catholic Fathers Blanchet and Demers had already baptized 19 Indians at Kettle Falls in 1839. The mission was given up around 1869 in favour of a site seven miles north of today's Colville.
The church stands on the bluff above Kettle Falls, near the site of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Colville, in today's northeastern Washington. It is a small log building reached by road; the surrounding ground is uneven, so sturdy shoes help. The structure is not in daily use, and the mission was abandoned around 1869 for a site seven miles north of present-day Colville.
The church that stands today is the hand-hewn log building put up two years after Father DeSmet preached to the Sxoielpi (Colville) in August 1845, when a small log chapel was first raised. Fire damaged it in 1910, and it was restored in 1939–40 rather than moved.
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