Sawyers Bar Catholic Church (St. Joseph's Catholic Church) is a historic church building in the

Klamath National Forest Klamath National Forest is a United States National Forest, national forest, in the Klamath Mountains and Cascade Range, located in Siskiyou County, California, Siskiyou County in northern California, but with a tiny extension (1.5 percent of the ...

Sawyers Bar, California Sawyers Bar is an unincorporated community located on the North Fork Salmon River in unincorporated Siskiyou County, California, not to be confused with a Sawyers or Lawyers Bar in Del Norte County. History Sawyers Bar, now in Siskiyou Count ...

, within the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento The Diocese of Sacramento is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the northern California region of the United States. The diocese's see is Sacramento, it is led by a bishop who pastors the mother church of ...

. The church was built in 1855 under the direction of Father Florian Schwenninger, a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

monk, who had come to the area of the Salmon River to serve the needs of the Catholic population among the local miners. The first

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

was celebrated in 1857. The site also contains a graveyard with graves dating to as early as 1850. The Church was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1978. Today, the church is considered a mission church of Sacred Heart Parish in

Fort Jones, CA Fort Jones is a city in the Scott Valley area of Siskiyou County, California, United States. Like many of the communities that surround Mount Shasta, it lies in the southern tip of the Cascadia bioregion. Its population is 695 as of the 2020 ce ...

."St. Joseph Mission," Diocese of Sacramento Website
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References

Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento Roman Catholic churches in California Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in California Roman Catholic churches completed in 1855 Buildings and structures in Siskiyou County, California Klamath National Forest Rustic architecture in California National Register of Historic Places in Siskiyou County, California 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States {{California-church-stub