They sent six men east to St. Louis with four arriving, and in 1842, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet responded to the request and came to the area.

In 1850, the church was taken over by the Italian Jesuit missionary Antonio Ravalli, who began designing the new mission building.

This term cropped up in the area due to the fame of Father fr:Giuseppe Cataldo (1837-1928), a Sicilian priest born in the village of Terrasini, who spent most of his missionary Jesuit life in the frontier community and founded Gonzaga University in Spokane.

The mission became a stop and supply station for traders, settlers, and miners traveling on the Mullan Road.

The walls were decorated with fabric bought from the Hudson's Bay Company and a hand-painted newspaper from Philadelphia that Fr.

The site became Old Mission State Park in 1975 through a long-term lease with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise.