Chewelah Historical Walk

06/28/2019

NARRATIVE #1
Indian Agency Cabin

In September 1872 Major John Simms, a white man, was appointed Special Indian Agent and reported to Fort Colville and on to Chewelah. The agency eventually consisted of the existing Cabin (his home with wife Lucy McFadden Simms), an office, store, granary, and gristmill. The cabin is the only remaining structure of five buildings of the Colville Indian Agency in 1880. The mill, a two story log building, was operated by Louis B. Fenwick. The mill was on Chewelah Creek about where the Congregational Church now stands. Although during the 1850s there had been deadly encounters between Indians and miners making their way through the Colville Valley, after the agency opened:
“It was agreed by all the people of this county that it was his [Agent Simms’s]
fair dealings with the Indians, together with his almost parental solicitude
for their welfare that prevented them from committing any acts of hostility
against the white residents of the Colville Valley.”
-Tom Graham, Book One, 88
The Chewelah agency taught the Indians farming methods and provided them with seeds and equipment. After the agency closed many of the Natives moved to the Spokane, Colville, and Kalispel reservations while others continued farming in the valley.
John Simms homesteaded the property in 1884 after it was no longer an agency building. After changing hands numerous times, it was purchased by the Dr. S. P. McPherson family in 1906 and used continuously until 2010 when it was donated to the Stevens County Historical Society by the McPherson Estate. The cabin was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 17, 1974. The Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation issued a permit for the Spokane and Kalispel Tribes to do archaeological digs on the site. Several important artifacts have been retrieved.
The work on the Indian Agency Cabin is ongoing and more information about its rich history is still being discovered. For more information about this project, please contact the Stevens County Historical Society.

06/28/2019

NARRATIVE #2
Valley Hospital Fire/St. Joseph's Hospital

In the January 15, 1927 issue of the Colville Examiner, headlines read “Two Lives are Lost, Valley Hospital Burned.”
The twelve (12) room hospital, operated by Dr. W. A. Cartwright, was built as a community hospital by residents of Valley, a short distance south of the town, in 1917. The land for it was given by a farmer who lived near the railroad. A group of Valley ranchers got together, put up collateral of hay, cordwood, potatoes and such, filed Articles of Incorporation and formed the Cartwright Sanitarium Association. John Olson, one of the Valley ranchers, stated that “it will never be a profitable investment. It wasn’t intended for that, but just to make things better for own people.”
The hospital, originally built at a cost of $5000.00, carried $1500.00 worth of insurance. The cause of the fire was not reported. Nothing but the foundation and the chimney remained of the hospital after the fire. It was decided that the hospital would not be rebuilt which made the need for such a facility a priority, thus, the hospital in Chewelah was built in 1929 to serve the people of the Chewelah Valley.

St. Joseph Hospital
By the late 1920s, the need for a hospital in Chewelah had become more acute after the destruction, by fire, of the hospital in Valley.
Mrs. Albert I. Kulzer, chairman of the Stevens County Red Cross chapter is quoted as saying: “A hospital here would be a big asset to the community. All progressive towns have such an institution and Chewelah surely does not wish to be numbered amongst the towns that are not progressive.”
In July, 1929, Nick Wiltz, city councilman donated two acres of land for a hospital. The land lay directly east of the original grade school property and north of St. Mary’s church. A smaller tract, owned by the Monaghan’s, lay in between St. Mary’s & the proposed hospital site. It was thought that the additional purchase of the Monaghan tract would allow the sisters ample space to keep a cow or two, chickens and maintain a garden, that being the Sister’s policy to operate as economically as possible.
The original plan of building the hospital by day labor, with no contract given to one building company, was decided upon August, 1929. Once the final specifications were in order, local men, experienced in building, were believed to have no trouble carrying out the specifications. Practically every builder and artisan in Chewelah donated services to the building of the hospital. G.A. Pehrson, Spokane architect, designed the building. Nick Wiltz served as supervisor of the construction and Mayor Emanuel Oppenheimer acted as purchasing agent.

The 32 room hospital was financed by the citizens of Chewelah and in a large part, by the Sisters of St. Dominic. Their mother house was on the banks of the Rhine in Speyer, Germany and dated back to the year 1304 (almost 200 years before America was discovered). The Sisters came to Helena, Montana in 1925. It was these Dominican Sisters who were invited by Father Stang, of St. Mary of the Rosary parish, to operate the hospital, under the direction of Reverend Mother Bonaventure, Superior. Father Stang, acting in an unofficial capacity, prayed, hoped and worked tirelessly for years to provide Chewelah with this hospital.
On February 4, 1930, St. Joseph Hospital was dedicated. This event marked the culmination of the hopes of virtually every Chewelah citizen and brought to fruition the long-cherished dream of Father Joseph Stang.

06/28/2019

NARRATIVE #3
St. Mary’s School

On July 1, 1926, during the pastorate of Father Joseph Stang and under the direction of Spokane architect, G. A. Pehrson, the Thayer Brothers broke ground and completed the brick building, at E. 508 Main Street, on December 7, 1926. This then new building cost $22,000.
Previous to 1926, children attended school in a building originally purchased in 1885 by the Jesuit missionaries to serve as the Catholic Church. The building was purchased from C. H. Montgomery and had been initially built for James Monaghan’s mercantile store. When the current church building was built in 1907, this building was remodeled to function as a school. In 1916, this building was moved from a location somewhere in the vicinity east of the existing highway, between there and the parish grounds, to the back of the present church. It was used as the schoolhouse until the above mentioned building was built in 1926. In addition to space for school, this building had some dormitory space available for students attending from other towns or rural locations. The school accommodated about sixty pupils in eight elementary grades.
Two Franciscan Sisters were the pioneers in teaching in the parochial school of Chewelah. They were Mother Mary Ottilia and Sister Josefa and had been transferred to Chewelah from Uniontown. Both were native of Bavaria and had been missionary teachers in Burma, India before coming to the United States.
In 1918, the Benedictine sisters of Clyde, Missouri replaced the two Franciscan Sisters. Then in 1926, these Benedictine Sisters were replaced by the Benedictine Sisters of Cottonwood, Idaho. At the beginning of the scholastic year in 1936, the Sisters of Notre Dame, from Mankato, Minnesota assumed the teaching responsibilities at the school until it closed in 1969.
St. Mary’s School closed due to a lack of religious sisters to staff the school, coupled with the much needed maintenance of the building.
According to Chewelah School District Board minutes, St. Mary’s was rented to the Chewelah School District for the 1997-1998 school year when the enrollment peaked. Then in the late ‘90s, Northwest Alloys had their first big layoff so enrollment started to decline and there was no need for the Chewelah School District to continue renting. The school building still stands and is a prominent landmark. Currently, the building houses a preschool and is used occasionally by community groups for various functions.
Since its organization, here in 1909, the parochial school of Chewelah, in its time, made an outstanding contribution to the education standards of Chewelah and vicinity.

06/27/2019

AUDIO #1
COLVILLE INDIAN AGENCY CABIN

1st stop on the Chewelah Historical Walk.

06/27/2019

AUDIO #2
VALLEY HOSPITAL FIRE- ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL

2nd stop on the Chewelah Historical Walk

06/27/2019

AUDIO #3
ST. MARY'S SCHOOL

3rd stop on the Chewelah Historical Walk

04/08/2019

#2: ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL

04/08/2019

#1: INDIAN AGENCY CABIN

04/08/2019

Welcome to the Chewelah Historical Walk. This page is intended to be used by anyone wishing to experience a self-guided walking tour of historic buildings and landmarks in our beautiful city. Each location is broken down into three separate Facebook posts- (1) will be the Audio if you'd like to listen to a recording. (2) will be the written Narrative if you'd like to follow along with the audio or just read the information and (3) is a picture of the Historic Building and or Landmark.