In 1884 a Jesuit priest, John Jutz, came to the Northern Arapaho six years after the government had settled them on the Shoshone reservation, and the Arapaho leader Black Coal chose the land where the mission would stand, near his own camp. The mission's church and boys' dormitory burned in 1928 and were rebuilt the same year, and the white stuccoed church still stands. In 1970 the Arapaho artist Raphael Norse painted it outside and in with Arapaho designs and symbols, filling the walls between the windows, and in later years the liturgy here took in the Arapaho language.
For most of a century the mission's central work was a boarding school, the kind of institution the federal government and the churches used to separate Native children from their families, languages and ceremonies. In 1975 the mission gave up running it, and the school passed to an Arapaho and Shoshone community association; it continues as St. Stephens Indian School.
The church, a heritage center with a museum and gift shop, and the grounds are open to visitors, just south of Riverton.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour