Old Missoula

Episcopal Bishop Tells of Early Day Services and Garden City Residents

“In Missoula and all other towns, only the world, the flesh and the devil, with many helps, and the Holy Spirit, unhelped, are at work.”

Thus, in 1870 wrote Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle, then Episcopal bishop of the Missionary District of Montana which included Montana and parts of Idaho and Utah.

Bishop Tuttle, 30, came to Missoula from Deer Lodge with the Rev. Mr. Goddard, the clergyman in that town, arriving on Saturday, July 9, 1870. He sat down in a room of what was called the Missoula Hotel, on East Front street, and began a letter to his wife. He wrote, “Now, while it is half daylight and growing dark, and while I am waiting for the ‘singers’ to come, I seem to have time to begin my letter to you.”

Brewer and Sheriff

In the morning he continued, “Last night no singers came before 10 o’clock; then an old man, the sheriff of the county, came with a bass viol, and a German brewer with a violin. After them came two others, young men. The German brewer is going to be leader today, and with bass viol and violin accompaniment we are going to try to sing ‘Balerma,’ ‘Old Hundred,’ ‘St. Thomas’ and ‘Greenland’s Icy Mountains’.”

He added, “They tell us this is the first Protestant service ever in this town. I feel quite sure this town is destined to be permanent, so tomorrow I’m going to see what I can do towards securing a church lot.”

Bishop Tuttle visited Missoula next in August of 1871. On Aug. 20 he officiated at the burial of a Robert C. Booth. Bishop Tuttle wrote, “At the reading of our burial service in Missoula (for the first time by any clergyman in this large western section of Montana) in the courthouse, I was struck, on looking up, to see the kind of congregation assembled. Miners from a distance (for the dead man had been a miner) saloon men, having closed their whisky shops, a few ladies, directly before me a Jesuit father, who has been in the mountains 20 years and whom I have frequently met, and, by the door, several Indians in red blankets and with vermillion-dyed faces, standing in reverent posture and unmoving muscles throughout the service. These are Flatheads who are nearly all Roman Catholics.”

Stewart in 1877

The first service conducted by a resident minister was July 22, 1877, when the Rev. George Stewart began his missionary work in Missoula County with Missoula, Stevensville and Corvallis in his charge.

The Rev. Mr. Stewart served until 1890. The Rev. Charles E. Linley came to the mission in September of 1890 and remained until May of 1907. During the last part of the Rev Mr. Linley’s service here the Rev. Caleb B. K. Weed and the Rev. E. N. English also served while the Rev. Mr. Linley was on leaves of absence.

Bennett Here 30 Years

The Rev. W. W. Lennie-Smith served the church from July 1907 until Aug. 31, 1910. The Rev. Henry S. Gatley assumed the position of rector Nov. 15, 1910 and served until Dec. 31, 1925. The Rev. Clarence A. Kopp served during 1918 when the Rev. Mr. Gatley took a leave of absence. The Rev. Thomas W. Bennett became rector March 7, 1926 and served the parish until Nov. 1, 1956.

The Rev. Kenneth H. Okkerse joined the parish staff as a curate July 1, 1955. He remained until the summer of 1957 when he went to Deer Lodge. The Rev. Donald L. Rhaesa came to the parish as rector in the summer of 1957 and remained until Good Friday of 1959. The Rev. Jacob D. Beck came to Holy Spirit as curate in April, 1959. The present rector, the Rev. B. Whitman Dennison, came to Missoula in the late summer of 1959.

$500 Gift

The first frame chapel of the Church of the Holy Spirit was built at the south end of property where the Central School now stands. A New York gentleman, Elbridge T. Gerry, had given Bishop Tuttle $500 to build a church in the Missionary District of Montana, provided the church be given the name, Church of the Holy Spirit. The bishop chose Missoula as the recipient of this gift.

In September of 1884 construction was begun on a brick church on the corner of Adams and Cedar streets. Cedar was the present Broadway. The site of the present church at South 6^th street and Gerald avenue was purchased in 1914. The church was built in 1915 and was completed in time for the Christmas Eve service. The final indebtedness was paid off by a gift of $5,000 given by Mrs. Carrie S. Bonner. The consecration of the present church was July 19, 1930.

The rectory was built in 1933. The addition to the parish house was built in 1953.