Lac Courte Oreilles remains one of the earliest Ojibway (Chippewa) Indian settlements in Wisconsin. In 1796 John Baptiste Corbine, a French-Canadian fur trader, arrived at Little Lac Courte Oreilles and established a trading post here in 1800. Corbine's Christian devotion impressed many of the Ojibway, and he is attributed with introducing Catholicism to the people of Lac Courte Oreilles. In 1860 visiting priests from Bayfield, Wisconsin, began to offer Mass at Lac Courte Oreilles. As Catholicism grew among the Ojibway, so too did their need for a local church. In 1881 the U.S. Government granted Lac Courte Oreilles a 10-acre tract to erect church and school. Completed in 1885, the small log church and school were named for St. Francis Solanus, a Franciscan missionary. In 1921 lightening destroyed the original log church. The present church, built in 1924, is constructed of local pipestone. St. Francis Solanus parishioners quarried and hauled the sacred stone from the pipestone quarry 7 miles away.
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