The Tshimakain Mission was established in November 1838 by Rev. Cushing Eells and Rev. Elkanah Walker, Congregationalist missionaries sent to the Oregon Territory by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Archibald McDonald, chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Colville, recommended the site called Tshimakain (place of springs) by the Native Americans for its abundance of water, wood, and farming land. After the Whitman Massacre of November 29, 1840 the missionaries at Tshimakain, only eight miles from the Whitman Mission, feared for their lives and left to seek safety at Fort Colville. Construction on the site continued after the missionaries left and many original buildings were destroyed. In the last fifty years, numerous other buildings have been built on the mission site. In 1908, a monument was erected on the site of the log cabin of Cushing Eells by the State Historical Society and the descendants of Eells and Walker. The monument was moved to its present location in 1938.