Established in 1841 by Pierre DeSmet, S.J., in response to requests for Black Robes by four separate delegations sent by Flathead and Nez Perce tribes to St. Louis. Fr. DeSmet and his party erected Montana's first church immediately west on the bank of the Bitter Root River. They planted the first garden and harvested the first wheat and oats, practiced first irrigation, breed first livestock, taught first classes and organized the first musical band. St. Mary's was the site of the first flour and lumber mills.
Fr. Ravalli, Montana's beloved priest-physician-artist-sculptor-architect, for whom this county is named, was assigned to St.Mary's during 1845-1850 and 1866 until his death in 1884. He rests in the cemetery west of the chapel.
St. Mary's ceased to be an Indian mission in 1891, when the Flathead-Salish were forced to remove to a reservation. The chapel served as a church for settlers until 1954, when a new church was built and the mission became a historic site.
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