Jesuit Father Joseph Cataldo was one of the first missionaries to serve the families living in eastern Washington State. He made the rounds of his order’s Indian missions as early as 1870.

Nine years later, a primitive church went up. It was named in honor of the great apostle and patron of Germany, St. Boniface of Mainz (d. 754), the bishop and martyr whose feast the Church celebrates each June 5.

The church was established by mostly German-speaking settlers from Germany and Switzerland. In 1888, one Father Anton Joehrn began planning a glorious church of brick and stone overlooking Uniontown. He hired an architect and a contractor, and secured pledges of financial support.

That must have been the easy part, for the cornerstone for the new St. Boniface Church was not laid until July 1, 1904. It saw its first Mass on Christmas Day of that year and was dedicated the following Palm Sunday.

A church bell cast in Walla Walla was hung in the belfry. To this day, it is tolled by hand to call the faithful to Mass.

St. Boniface became the first church to be consecrated in the Evergreen State. When consecrating a Catholic church, the bishop anoints the walls with sacred chrism. St. Boniface was anointed in 12 places, with each place marked by a cross and a candle. The church was consecrated to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception on June 5, 1910, by Bishop Edward O’Dea of Nesqually, Wash.

Today the church shares a pastor with nearby St. Gall parish, and the two parishes combine their resources to run a youth ministry and a religious-education program.

Bricked to Last

You can learn the most intriguing tidbits when you set out to research the background of even the most ordinary Catholic churches. As long as they have a history, they have a story — or many stories — to tell.

In 1884, Benedictine nuns from Switzerland chose Uniontown for their new home and built a boarding school for students. At a later date, Father Joehrn started a boys’ school. One of the Benedictine nuns also taught at the local public school in order to obtain additional income.

St. Boniface is Romanesque in design. Its fortress-like brick exterior frames a central entrance with two cross-topped towers at either side and a rose window directly above. The historic bell is housed in the left steeple; its twin to the right remains empty.  

Rising to a point between the tower steeples is a statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Added during World War II, this contains a halo of electric lights that were kept on to guide returning soldiers back home. The lights are still lit on special occasions.

Saints, Angels and Relatives

Inside, the church has the feel of a basilica. It’s barrel-vaulted, which makes for outstanding acoustics. In fact the sound is so good that the Washington-Idaho Symphony Orchestra began a tradition in 1993 of playing here the first Sunday of each May.

I was told the present church looks basically as it did in 1905, except for the addition of oil paintings over the side altars.

These came in the 1930s, when an itinerant artist passing through the area was commissioned. The artist used local parishioners as models. Some of the present parishioners maintain that they can recognize relatives in the paintings.

After Vatican II, a new altar was installed so that the priest can say Mass facing the people. The new altar was built using the altar rail design so that, when one stands at the front door of the church, the altar appears to complete the altar rail.

The church is home to no fewer than 28 statues, including many likenesses of angels. Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception watches from over the main altar. She has some help: Sts. Boniface and Francis to her right and Sts. Patrick and Anthony to her left. Meanwhile side altars display Mary and Joseph, St. Francis Xavier and St. Thèrése of Lisieux.

The tabernacle is in the center of the original main altar. A sanctuary light burns close by, a perpetual reminder of the One the faithful really come to encounter here and in every Catholic Church in the world. 

The Stations of the Cross are oil paintings mounted on the sides and back walls. Each station is in a wooden frame that resembles a little cross-topped church. The stations are suspended from the walls and mounted at an angle so as to maximize the impact of the Passion scenes they depict with such realism.

Facing the front is the window of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. Her heart is pierced with seven swords. To the left of the front door is a window of St. John the Baptist.

One thing about St. Boniface Church struck me as especially unique: It’s set on a small hill in a small town in the middle of nowhere, yet it seats nearly 500 people. I’m sure the residents of Uniontown, a farming community, wouldn’t like to know that their town is considered the “middle of nowhere,” but that’s how it strikes the visitor. (Uniontown is in the Diocese of Spokane.)

Yet its out-of-the-way setting hasn’t kept it from finding an “audience.”

“Every time we travel to and from Spokane, we pause at St. Boniface to pray,” says Sister Mary Beverly Greger, a hermit sister of Marymount Hermitage in Mesa, Idaho. “The atmosphere is full of grace and faith. You can feel the devotion of the people who built and maintain the church.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Joseph Albino is based in

Syracuse, New York.

St. Boniface Church

P.O. Box 108

Colton, WA 99113

(509) 229-3548  

Planning Your Visit

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the Saturday Vigil Mass moves from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in order to give farmers enough time to get in from the fields. Confessions are heard one hour before this Mass. Daily Mass is said at St. Gall Church in Colton at 8 a.m. For the rest of the schedule, and for more information, call the rectory in Colton at the number above.