STEVENSVILLE - People who have recently stopped by the historic St. Mary's Mission in Stevensville may have noticed work underway to restore a blacksmith shop that burned down in a fire in the early 1900s.
“Historic St. Mary’s Mission is of great significance because this was the homeland of the Salish. This was Father Jean Pierre Desmet came to establish a mission in 1841 before Montana was a state,” explained St. Mary’s Mission executive director Dora Bradt.
The mission sits at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains. It was a place where agriculture, medicine, education and religion were first introduced. And now there is another piece of history that was recently unearthed on the historic grounds.
“We discovered it was a blacksmith shop because we were digging the hole doing the excavation work,” said historic restoration specialist Chris Weatherly. “We discovered a lot of metal slag and that told me there was probably a hearth there which burned the place down in the 1900s.”
Weatherly says there have been some challenges figuring out what the building looked like. The original building is only documented twice.
“All I had to go by were two photographs that were taken before 1900. They were only taken from two positions, one south of the building and one north of the building. So, I had no idea what the west side of the building looked like.”
Weatherly says when he started the project, he had to choose between using new materials or going with old materials to rebuild the blacksmith shop.
“I ended up going with old materials and the logs are from a 150-year-old cabin in Dillion, Montana and it's full of nails. Each nail had a purpose, whether that was to hang a picture, hang a shelf,” Weatherly explained. “I’ve done work on buildings for twenty years and the sod work, but each nail I pulled out I felt the energy of each person that drove that nail."
The memories of historic St. Mary’s Mission are one that Brandt hopes this project will bring back.
“It is our hope that this blacksmith shop will be able to bring back those memories, the missionaries that were here working with their tools and small animals. Bring back the historical memories and match our pictures of the blacksmith shop that was a part of the grounds.
The St. Mary’s Mission is planning on opening the blacksmith's shop in the fall, but they do need extra donations to complete the project. Donations can be made to https://www.stmarysmission.org/.
