Founded in 1847 for Osage Indians living along the Neosho and Verdigris rivers, the mission included a manual labor school for boys established by the Jesuits and a department for girls run by the Sisters of Loretto, and its highest recorded enrollment was 239. In 1848, the first Catholic church in southern Kansas was built there. During the Civil War, when property was laid waste throughout the border, the mission was always spared and school was never suspended. When the Osages moved to Indian territory in 1870, white children gradually replaced the Indians, and the school became St. Francis Institution for boys and St. Ann's Academy for girls. St. Francis closed in 1891 and St. Ann's was destroyed by fire in 1895. Notable in service there were Mother Bridget Hayden and Fathers John Schoenmakers, John Bax, and Paul Mary Ponziglione, the latter an Italian nobleman. A town, Osage Mission, organized in 1867, became St. Paul in 1895.