The mission was built near the HBC's Fort Colville, on the bluff then overlooking Kettle Falls on the Columbia River.

Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries visited Kettle Falls several times from 1836 on, attempting to convert natives to Christianity.

The first missionaries, representatives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and sponsored by the Presbyterians and Congregationalists, arrived in 1836.

They delivered the first Catholic mass between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range in 1839 and baptized 19 Indians, but were unable to establish a permanent mission.

Following Belgian Father DeSmet's preaching to the Sxoielpi (Colville Indians) in August 1845, a small log chapel was built.