Catholicism comes to the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies

The Catholic Church established a permanent presence in Wyoming through the work of missionaries and the arrival of settlers and immigrants during the 19th century. Belgian Jesuit missionary Pierre Jean De Smet offered the first recorded Mass in the region in 1840 near present-day Daniel while traveling to work among the Flathead people.

The Holy See created the Diocese of Cheyenne in 1887 to cover the entire Wyoming Territory. Maurice Francis Burke, an Irish-born priest from Chicago, was appointed the first bishop of the diocese.

Bishop Burke managed a territory more than three times the size of Ireland with a staff consisting of 6 priests, 21 women religious, and 1 lay brother. To reach various communities, he traveled via the railroad network to southern towns and used stagecoaches and buckboards to visit northern areas.