An Italian Jesuit’s murals and frescoes have wowed visitors to this town’s mission for over a century. It will take plenty of work to keep it that way. “You can see where bits of plaster have actually fallen off,” said the mission’s pastoral delegate, the Rev. C. Hightower, gesturing around the church’s 58 paintings. “You can see all the cracks, and on this one, you can see where it's actually bubbling over in the corner there, so they have to reseal all of that.”

Since he arrived at St. Ignatius in 2017, Hightower has helped oversee this painstaking, and expensive, restoration project, a bid to preserve a unique landmark in the Mission Valley. The Jesuits founded the St. Ignatius Mission Parish in 1845 near the present-day Washington-Idaho state line, then moved it to its current location at the foot of the Mission Range in 1854.