Saint Mary's Mission
Montana
In the Bitterroot Valley town of Stevensville, Saint Mary's Mission holds a place as the oldest non-Indigenous settlement in Montana. Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet established it in eighteen forty-one at the invitation of the Salish people, who had sent four delegations east across the Rockies to find the Black Robes they had heard of from Iroquois trappers. The mission was sold in eighteen fifty and sat dormant for years before Father Anthony Ravalli rebuilt it in eighteen sixty-six.
Ravalli was also a physician who made his own medicines and tools, and his house became a pharmacy. The restored chapel and Ravalli's pharmacy still stand on site as part of a historic district.
