Item 8 - Notes for a Mission History of Bend

3 pp; typescript

A chronological record of the Catholic Mission in Bend, Oregon, tracking its development from 1904 through the early 1920s. The narrative chronicles the early circuit priests and the 1910 arrival of the Irish Capuchin friars, led by Father Luke Sheehan, who initially ministered to a tiny congregation of just 72 Catholics. Despite a devastating 1911 fire that destroyed their original schoolhouse chapel, the parish expanded rapidly alongside Bend’s industrial logging boom fuelled by the Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon lumber mills. Over the next decade, the mission successfully incorporated the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, partnered with the Sisters of St. Joseph to found St. Charles Hospital in 1917, constructed a large new church in 1920, and grew its community to a census population of 610 Catholics.

For information on St. Charles Hospital in Bend, Oregon, see https://stcharleshealthcare.org/news/austere-beginnings