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October 2003—New Acquisition:
Records of St. Stephen's Catholic Mission 

Marquette University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections and University Archives has acquired the records of St. Stephen’s Mission, located on the Wind River Reservation near Riverton, Wyoming. The mission, established by Jesuit missionaries in 1884, serves Catholics from the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes. The Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus now manages St. Stephen’s mission.

The initial installment of records from St. Stephen’s spans the mission’s 119 year history, and includes Jesuit "house diaries," correspondence, general subject files, unpublished histories of the mission, photographs, and Arapaho vocabularies. The collection is greatly enhanced by the availability of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions records, also preserved at Marquette, which contains annual reports, correspondence, and photographs from the mission. The Marquette Archives maintains more than three dozen other collections documenting Catholicism among Native Americans, including the Tekakwitha Conference, St. Francis Mission (Rosebud Reservation) and Holy Rosary Mission (Pine Ridge Reservation).

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The collection will be processed and microfilmed in 2003-2004. A complete set of microfilm will be supplied to the library at St. Stephen’s.

The acquisition of the collection was made possible thanks to a 2003  travel grant from the Simmons Religious Commitment Fund at Marquette University.  Questions about the records of St. Stephen's Mission, or other Native Catholic Collections, should be addressed to Mark Thiel, (414) 288-5904 or e-mail mark.thiel@marquette.edu

This page compiled and maintained by:
Susan Hopwood, 288-5995 or Susan.Hopwood@marquette.edu

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© 2003 Marquette University -- Last Update: June 24, 2003