The Jesuits, who established numerous missions among the Plains Indians in the 1880s, including St. Stephens, were acutely aware of the transformative impact of the reservation system. Central to the government’s objective of assimilating the Native American population was the process of education. Chief Black Coal of the Northern Arapaho articulated this necessity as early as 1878, stating:

“This (land in southern Wyoming) was the country of my fathers, now dead and dying. We love our children. We very much want a good schoolhouse, and a good man to teach our children to read your language, that they may grow up to be intelligent men and women, like the children of the White man. And then, when Sunday comes, we would be glad of some good man to teach our children about the Great Spirit.”

Bishop James O’Connor, the Catholic Bishop of Omaha, whose diocese at the time encompassed what would soon become the state of Wyoming in 1890, learned of the Federal Government’s plans to establish a school for Indian children on the Wind River Reservation at Fort Washakie, the Agency. O’Connor, having already raised $5,000 to aid the Indian people of the Reservation, offered this fund to equip the interior of the new school building if the government would allow the Church to manage the institution. Subsequently, O’Connor arranged with the Buffalo, New York Mission of the Society of Jesus to send Father John J. Jutz, a German Jesuit, to establish the new mission.

Father Jutz arrived in Lander, a town on the southwestern edge of the Reservation, during the week of April 20, 1884, only to discover that the Agency had already assigned the school, intended primarily for the Shoshoni, to the renowned Welsh Episcopal minister, Reverend John Roberts. Upon hearing that the Northern Arapaho resided at the far eastern end of the Reservation and might welcome a school in their vicinity, having previously sent some of their children to schools in the East, Jutz shifted his focus.

In May 1884, Jutz reached Black Coal’s camp near the confluence of the Little and Big Wind Rivers, approximately four miles from the modern city of Riverton. He was soon joined by Jesuit Brother Ursis Nunlist, who came to assist in building the new mission. In a letter dated August 12, 1884, Jutz reported that he and Brother Nunlist had begun work on a “school and dwelling house,” a four-room 24 by 24-foot building serving as chapel, sleeping quarters, kitchen, reception room, and workshop—the humble beginnings of St. Stephens Indian Mission.