William S. Stone’s The Cross in the Middle of Nowhere: The History of the Catholic Church in Eastern Oregon chronicles the institutional, missionary, and parish development of the Roman Catholic Church across the arid expanses of the Columbia Plateau, the Blue Mountains, and the Great Basin interior. The narrative traces how itinerant missionary stations, rural chapels, and reservation boarding schools were superimposed directly onto the seasonal gathering roots, river fisheries, and ancestral homelands of the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Northern Paiute peoples. Stone details the demanding logistical mechanics of early religious administration, illustrating how circuit-riding clergy traversed rugged stagecoach trails, pack routes, and emergent rail corridors to bind isolated livestock ranches, transient mining camps like Auburn and Canyon City, and railhead communities to regional centers at The Dalles and the diocesan see at Baker City. Ultimately, the chronicle demonstrates how ecclesiastical outposts and parochial networks functioned as durable instruments of social and civic infrastructure, permanently anchoring settler colonial governance across the high desert landscape.

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