St. Michael's Station

About St. Michael's Station

St. Michael's Station is a Catholic mission church in Mullan, Idaho — a small Silver Valley mining town in the Idaho panhandle. Listed in the Diocese of Boise directory under the designation 'station' rather than as a full parish, it functions as a mission of St. Alphonsus Parish in nearby Wallace. The faithful gather for a single Sunday afternoon Mass at 1:00 p.m., continuing a tradition of Catholic worship in Mullan that dates to the mining boom of the 1880s and 1890s.

History of the Parish

The parish traces its origins to 1890, when Bishop Alphonse J. Glorieux — first Bishop of Boise — built and dedicated the Church of the Immaculate Conception (now known as St. Michael's) in Mullan at a cost of about eight hundred dollars. The church served generations of Catholic miners and their families in the Silver Valley, where towns like Mullan boomed around lead-silver mines such as the Gold Hunter, Morning, and later the Lucky Friday. A historical exterior photograph of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Mullan is preserved in the Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection at the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives. As the population of the Silver Valley contracted in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the parish was reorganized as a mission station served from St. Alphonsus in Wallace.

• 1890 — Church built and dedicated by Bishop Glorieux for roughly $800
• 1894–1964 era — Exterior of St. Michael's photographed by the Barnard Studio of Wallace, Idaho (now in the University of Idaho's Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection)
• Late 20th–early 21st century — Parish reorganized as a station/mission of St. Alphonsus, Wallace

Diocese and Pastoral Care

St. Michael's Station is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, which encompasses the entire state of Idaho. It is identified by the diocese and by GCatholic.org as a mission of St. Alphonsus Parish in Wallace. Pastoral care is provided by Benedictine Father Jerome L. Montez, OSB, who also serves as pastor of St. Rita's in Kellogg, St. Mary Immaculate in St. Maries, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Harrison, and St. Alphonsus in Wallace.

• Diocese: Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise
• Parent parish (mission): St. Alphonsus, Wallace, Idaho
• Pastor: Fr. Jerome L. Montez, OSB
• Father Montez's ordination: June 14, 1997

Mass and Worship Schedule

As a small mission station, St. Michael's offers one weekly celebration of the Eucharist. The published Sunday Mass time in the Diocese of Boise directory and in third-party Mass-times listings is 1:00 p.m. on Sundays. Travelers and visitors in the upper Silver Valley are encouraged to confirm the current schedule with the parish office in Kellogg before traveling.

• Sunday — 1:00 PM (English)

Clergy

The parish is pastored by Father Jerome L. Montez, OSB, a Benedictine priest ordained on June 14, 1997. In addition to St. Michael's Station in Mullan, Father Montez serves St. Rita's Parish in Kellogg, St. Mary Immaculate in St. Maries, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Harrison, and St. Alphonsus in Wallace. Parishioners may reach the parish office by mail at the Kellogg address or by phone at the number listed in the diocesan directory.

• Fr. Jerome L. Montez, OSB — Pastor (ordained June 14, 1997)

Contact and Visiting

St. Michael's Station sits at the corner of 3rd and Park Streets in Mullan, Idaho 83846. Parish mail is routed through the Kellogg parish office at 27 Kellogg Ave., Kellogg, ID 83387, and the parish telephone line is 208-752-3551. Mullan is located in Shoshone County at the east end of the Silver Valley, just west of the Montana border at Lookout Pass along Interstate 90.

• Address (church): 3rd and Park Streets, Mullan, ID 83846
• Mailing address: 27 Kellogg Ave., Kellogg, ID 83387
• Phone: 208-752-3551
• Diocese website: catholicidaho.org

Mullan and the Silver Valley

Mullan is a small city in Shoshone County in northern Idaho's Silver Valley mining district. Founded in 1884 around the Gold Hunter and Morning mines, the town sits in a sheltered canyon of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains at an elevation of about 3,278 feet. The Northern Pacific Railway arrived in 1889, and at the peak of mining in 1940 the town was home to roughly 2,300 residents, the majority of them miners and their families. The Lucky Friday Mine, operated by Hecla Mining Company since 1942, is still active just east of the town center. Mullan was named for U.S. Army Captain John Mullan, who in the 1850s and 1860s oversaw construction of the Mullan Road — the first wagon road over the northern Rocky Mountains, running from Fort Walla Walla, Washington, to Fort Benton, Montana.

• Town founded: 1884
• Named for: Captain John Mullan, builder of the Mullan Road (1859–1860)
• Peak population: ~2,300 (1940)
• Active mine: Lucky Friday (Hecla Mining Company, since 1942)
• Notable historic event: 200 miners from Mullan joined the 'Dynamite Express' during the 1899 Coeur d'Alene labor confrontation