St. Joseph's Catholic Mission Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

From the record

“Joseph's Catholic Mission Church or Old Pep is a site on the National Register of Historic Places located in Townsend, Montana. It was added to the Register on November 5, 1998.”
Wikipedia article St. Joseph's Catholic Mission Church, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 11 National Register listings published here for Broadwater County · listed in 1998 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 3497 MT 284, Townsend, 59644
When was it listed? November 1998
Category. building
Census division. Townsend East
National Register reference number. 98001339 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

10 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of St. Joseph's Catholic Mission Church between 2000 and 2020, burning about 100 acres in total. 5 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Smoking	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
18 September 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	78 acres	Central Land Office	not named
1 September 2012	Natural	18 acres	Central Land Office	DIXON
31 July 2000	Natural	under an acre	Central Land Office	not named
26 July 2003	Natural	under an acre	Butte Field Office	BROADWATER
20 July 2018	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Central Land Office	not named
27 June 2019	Natural	under an acre	Broadwater County	not named
15 April 2018	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Central Land Office	not named
1 April 2000	Smoking	3.0 acres	Central Land Office	not named

Every fire recorded in Broadwater County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of St. Joseph's Catholic Mission Church: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold, Silver. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Silver Dike Group	Gold, Silver	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Broadwater County

Storms near this property

36 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Townsend, the town this property stands in, in 36 storm reports between 2002 and 2025: 22 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 1 lightning, 1 flood. The reports record 1 death. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2007	Lightning	Townsend	1 killed	Man fishing alone in boat on southern Canyon Ferry Resevoir, on east shore across from Silos, struck and killed by lightning around 320 pm MDT.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Mesonet station GINM8 Ginger RAWS measured a 61 mph wind gust. Time estimated using radar given the station reports once per hour.
September 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Mesonet station GINM8 Ginger RAWS measured a 61 mph wind gust. Time estimated using radar.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Measured via site GINM8 Ginger.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Measured by and reported via Ambient Weather.
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	RAWS station GINM8 Ginger measured a peak wind gust of 58 mph. The station reports hourly so the time of the gust was estimated using radar.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Mesonet station Ginger Raws recorded a wind gust of 50 knots.
August 2022	Hail	Townsend	-	Public report of ping pong sized hail.
August 2022	Hail	Townsend	-	Social media post from the Townsend area showed quarter sized hail.
August 2022	Hail	Townsend	-	Public report via social media of quarter sized hail.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	EKHM8 station measured a 56 kt (65 mph) thunderstorm wind gust.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Ginger RAWS measured a 53 kt (61 mph) thunderstorm wind gust.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	The Ginger RAWS near Townsend measured a 67 kt (77 mph) thunderstorm wind gust.
August 2019	Hail	Townsend	-	A trained spotter reports hail size of 1.75 inches in diameter.
August 2019	Hail	Townsend	-	A trained spotter reported hail up to the size of 1.75 inches in diameter.
July 2019	Funnel Cloud	Townsend	-	Trained spotter reported a funnel cloud in Townsend.
July 2019	Hail	Townsend	-	Trained spotter reported hail sized 1.25 inches in Townsend.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Sheriff's office reports a tree limb down on a power line.
August 2019	Hail	Townsend	-	A member of the public estimated hail size up to 2 inches in diameter. There are reports of house windows broken, car windshields cracked, and vehicles dented. the time of event was estimated.
March 2018	Flood	Townsend	-	Broadwater County Emergency Manager reported widespread snowmelt flooding for valley locations in the county. Water was entering basements of some homes. Some roadways were flooded too.
June 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Mesonet reported thunderstorm wind gust of 59 mph.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Thunderstorm outflow winds caused branches to be knocked off trees near the town of Townsend...which fell on nearby power lines...knocking them down. No hail reported...but there was a significant rain shower nearby at the time.
April 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A thunderstorm gust to 71 mph was reported at Townsend 8W (the Elkhorn RAWS site).
August 2016	Hail	Townsend	-	A thunderstorm dropped 1 inch diameter hail at Townsend 11E. Also, a thunderstorm wind gust to 66 mph was reported at Townsend 3WNW.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A thunderstorm produced a wind gust to 62 mph at Townsend 8W. Also, 1.25 inch diameter hail was reported at Townsend.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	High winds measuring 50KT (58MPH) were reported 3 miles W of Townsend, MT.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	Strong outflow winds gusted to an estimated 50KT (58MPH) and knocked down up to 20 power poles 1 mile N of Townsend.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A thunderstorm produced a wind gust to 70 mph at Townsend 8W (the Elkhorn RAWS site).
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A thunderstorm produced a wind gust to 64 mph at Townsend 7NNW (the Silos Recreation site).
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced a wind gust to 83 mph at Townsend 8W.
August 2008	Hail	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm dropped .75 inch diameter hail at Townsend 7SSE.
July 2002	Hail	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced 0.75 inch hail at Townsend 8E.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced a 70 mph wind gust at Ginger. Winds were gusting to over 60 mph in the city of Townsend, with a few trees knocked down.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced an 82 mph wind gust at Canyon Ferry Lake near Townsend, and a 61 mph wind gust in the city of Townsend. Numerous trees and power lines were knocked down. Hail up to one quarter inch was reported.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced a wind gust of 60 mph at Townsend 6 NE.
August 2002	Hail	Townsend	-	A severe thunderstorm produced 0.88 inch hail in Townsend.

Every storm recorded in Broadwater County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Valley Masonic Lodge No. 21	7.0 miles	2019
	State Bank of Townsend	7.3 miles	1992

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 98001339 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Broadwater County	All 11 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.