Heritage Sites

The town of St. Paul, established in 1839, was the first Catholic mission in the Oregon Country south of the Columbia River. Rev. Francois Norbert Blanchet, the newly arrived French Canadian missionary, established the mission for the French Indian families then living in French Prairie area of the Willamette Valley. The St. Paul mission, along with the missions at Fort Vancouver and the Cowlitz Prairie (both in present-day
Washington State) were part of the first Catholic missionary effort in the Pacific Northwest.