Petit Canada, or French Village, was visited by explorers and missionaries in the early 1700's. Later in the middle of the century, miners leaving the King's Highway at Bloomsdale established a permanent camp there on their way to Old Mines, and the first settlers were French Canadians involved in fur trapping and mining. By 1797, twenty furnaces around French Village were smelting ore. Although Mass had been offered earlier by passing missionaries, in 1828 St. Anne's was established as the first permanent parish in St. Francois County, with a priest riding from Ste. Genevieve to say Mass in a log church for eighteen families. Twenty years later Father John Anselm became the first resident pastor. At that time St. Anne was one of only forty-eight parishes in the entire state and served five hundred twenty-five members. The present church was built in 1871-1874 and rebuilt after a fire in 1919. At various times St. Anne ministered to Catholics at Bloomsdale, Zell, Lawrenceton, Farmington, and Bonne Terre. As mining moved into the richer producing Lead Belt during the last half of the 1800's, French Village became primarily a farming area. The role of St. Anne Parish then reversed, and it became a mission of Bonne Terre, then Bloomsdale and Lawrenceton, and from 1964 to the present it has again been a mission of Bonne Terre. Today the country continues to attract visitors and new settlers.