Cataldo Mission: Idaho's Oldest Building

In the eighteen thirties, word of powerful medicine men in black robes spread among the tribes of the region, and the Coeur d'Alene people welcomed the Jesuit priests who came to live among them. and between eighteen fifty and eighteen fifty-three, Coeur d'Alene workers and Jesuit missionaries built this church together on a bluff above the Coeur d'Alene River.

The architect was Father Antonio Ravalli, an Italian who modeled the building on the cathedrals of his homeland. Workers built with handmade tools, wooden pegs, and grass mixed with mud, using no nails. The result is the oldest standing building in Idaho. The town nearby is named Cataldo, after a Sicilian Jesuit who later used the mission as his regional headquarters. It is a National Historic Landmark and the centerpiece of Old Mission State Park.