Pastor talks about the Flathead Valley's first churches
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 1 day, 3 hours AGO
Pastor Chuck Cushman
Pastor Chuck Cushman will describe how pioneer preachers established the Flathead Valley’s first churches during a presentation on Nov. 16.
The talk is part of the Northwest Montana Westerners history group's monthly meeting. It begins at 7 p.m. at the Northwest Montana History Museum in downtown Kalispell.
Cushman will talk about the period between 1886 and 1901, and the congregations gathered in mostly forgotten towns like Selish, Sheldon, Egan and others.
The early preachers include Rev. George Fisher, who gave the area’s first sermon at Ashley, Kalispell’s predecessor town, in 1886. Rev. Eugene Lee dedicated the first church in the now-abandoned Flathead River town of Demersville. And Rev. John Eastland’s route included services in approximately 15 communities.
Cushman serves as pastor of the Swan Chapel in Swan Lake. For the last six years, he has also been doing living history as ministry, reenacting on horseback actual old preaching circuits in Idaho, central Montana and the Flathead.
General admission is $5, with members and youths admitted free.
Cushman will also hold two other events.
On Saturday, Nov. 14 at 11 a.m. at Fair-Mont-Egan School, he will highlight Rev. Eugene Leslie Lee, who served many settlements, but lived in, and regularly served the town of Demersville (where he dedicated a building for the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1891), as well as the communities of Egan and Brocken.
Also on Nov. 14 at 5 p.m. at Real Life Church in Bigfork, the Rev. John Melvin Eastland will be highlighted.
He started the first church in the Bigfork area. The Lone Pine Cemetery and historic Little Brown Church are in this location. Eastland served the communities of Fairview, Bad Rock, Elk Park, Deer Park, and then in the ‘90s, Columbia Falls, Spring Creek, Tobacco Plains, Jennings, Libby, Sylvanite, Troy, Bonners Ferry, as well as the community of Holt.
Two Circuit Riders in period clothing will be arriving at both locations approximately 20 minutes before each service.