From “A Century of Grace: St. Ann Catholic Church of Bonner, 1905-2005”:
On June 15, 1905, the Daily Missoulian reported: “New Church for Bonner. Father Philippi stated yesterday that a
church would be built at Bonner in the near future. He holds monthly service there at present and owing to the large
increase in the attendance and the wishes of the congregation it was thought advisable to build. The plans have already
been drawn by Architect Gibson and the specifications are in the hands of the contractors. It is thought that active
operations on the building will commence within a month.”
It was an honor for Bonner to have A.J. Gibson involved in the design of its first church. Gibson was western
Montana’s foremost architect, with at least 19 buildings to his credit that are listed on the National Register of Historic
Places. Examples are Main Hall on the University of Montana campus, the Carnegie Public Library (now the Missoula
Art Museum), Missoula County and Ravalli County courthouses, and the 1909 Daly Mansion remodel in Hamilton.
With plans in hand, Jesuit Father Julian Loiseau of St. Francis Xavier in Missoula directed construction of the
church. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s Lumber Division across the street donated the materials and the land,
the latter with the stipulation that there always remain a church on the property. At the time some 40 Catholic families
lived in the Bonner area, most of them French-Canadians. They had surnames such as Thibodeau, Therriault, Beaulieu,
LaForge, Cyr, Doucette, and Dufresne. Mill employees formed the bulk of the building crew. Masses were in Latin but
for a number of years sermons were delivered in French.
After three years under the jurisdiction of the Jesuits at St. Francis Xavier, the Catholic mission at Bonner was
attached to St. John the Baptist Church in Frenchtown, probably because of the language connection. It was usually
attended from there by Father Lionel LeGris, a big and colorful French-preaching man who loved the sport of boxing and
owned one of the county’s early automobiles.
“It looked like a regular buggy, one with a motor on it with chains, with rope,” a former Frenchtown parishioner
recalled in “Frenchtown Valley Footprints” (1976).
The late John Moe, born in 1913, was an altar boy from West Riverside and helped his grandfather, Vitale Cyr, take
care of the church. At age 91 Moe recalled Father LeGris driving into the quagmire in front of the church: “He was a
powerful man. He would get out of the car, lift the front end out of the mud, turn the car around and head back to
Frenchtown after mass.”
The little Catholic mission church soon gained neighbors. In 1907 Bonner School was moved from Bonner Hall on
the north end of Bonner to a new two-story building on the current school grounds, therefore accommodating the
growing Milltown and Finntown (West Riverside) communities. On the other side, the area’s Norwegian population
opened Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in 1910, also on ACM Co. land. Those three institutions have greeted travelers to
and through Bonner from Missoula ever since.
Fr. LeGris was said to be saddened when he “lost” Bonner in 1923. It was attached to Missoula’s new parish, St.
Anthony. By 1938, St. Ann was made a parish of its own by the diocese in Helena. Its first pastor, John J. Connolly,
launched a fundraising drive to build a bigger, better church. Volunteers, many from the mill, raised the second St. Ann
church alongside the first one. It was formally opened in January 1940, and the little 1905 mission church housed
religious services no more.
“The contract to tear down the old church and use the lumber to build a rectory was also decided on and Mr. Tuffie
Johns agreed to do it for the sum of $80,” John McClellan wrote in a 1986 parish history. “Actually about half of the old
building was left standing and converted into a double garage. This served as a garage until the present double garage
was built in about 1974 or 1975. About a year prior to the fire in 1985 the old double garage building was given to the
school for a storage building and moved onto their property.”
Fire in early 1985 rendered the second church unfit for use. Our Savior Lutheran next door welcomed Catholic
weekend masses for the next 21 months until the current church, St. Ann’s third, was built and ready for use.
The original church building is distinguished by the shape of its boarded-over lancet (pointed) church windows. It
was 117 years old in August 2022 when it caught the eye of Bishop Austin Vetter during a visit from the Helena Diocese.
The bishop wondered why it couldn’t be returned to the St. Ann Parish to better mark its spiritual and historic past.
Inquiries into the matter were ongoing as the year drew to a close.