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- The St. Peter's Mission Church and Cemetery, also known as St. Peter's Mission and as St. Peter's-By-the-Rock is a historic Roman Catholic mission located on Mission Road 10.5 miles (16.9 km) west-northwest of the town of Cascade, Montana, United States. The historic site consists of a wooden church and "opera house" and a cemetery. Also on the site are the ruins of a stone parochial school for boys, a stone convent, and several outbuildings. St. Peter's Mission was founded in the 1860s by priests of the Society of Jesus (better known as the Jesuits), a Catholic religious order. It moved to its final location on Birch Creek in 1881. Within a year the Jesuits constructed a small chapel, a chapel expansion, and log cabin residences. The log cabins were subsequently moved, and a one-story wooden dormitory and three-story wooden bell tower were built adjacent to the chapel. Ursuline nuns arrived in October 1884 and opened a girls' school in 1885. A post office opened at the mission the same year, and farming and cattle ranching began at the site. A four-story stone school/dormitory for boys and a three-story wooden priests' residence were constructed in 1887. A four-story convent and girls' school was finished in 1892, and a two-story wooden music building (the "opera house") in 1896. Changes in federal funding for Native American parochial schools led the Jesuits to abandon St. Peter's Mission in 1898, but the Ursulines continued their educational efforts there. The boys' school, priests' residence, one-story chapel addition, and some outbuildings burned to the ground in January 1908. The Ursulines closed the boys' school and refocused their educational efforts at the nearby town of Great Falls, Montana. Education for girls continued at St. Peter's until November 1918, when the girls' school burned to the ground. The mission was abandoned, and the post office closed in 1938. (en)
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