On November 3rd, 1847, the Catholic community at St. Louis, Oregon, became the third parish to be established in Oregon. By 1872 Gervais was separated from St. Louis and become a new parish under the patronage of Sts. Gervase and Protase. In 1895 the patronage was changed to that of the Sacred Heart. The two parishes existed side by side until 1980, after that the pastor of Sacred Heart in Gervais, acted as the administrator of St. Louis.
In 1991 the two parishes of St. Louis and Sacred Heart in Gervais were reunited again as one parish with the new name of Sacred Heart-St. Louis. When the Sacred Heart's pastor asked the officials of the Archdiocese for a copy of the document establishing this new parish, none was to be found. When asked about this, the chancellor of the Archdiocese said that there had never been a decree separating the two parishes in 1875. Therefore, what had never been decreed to be separated needed no decree to be reunited.
While the two former parishes still maintain separate identities and histories, those histories are intimately entwined. So many families of the two communities are related by blood and marriage. Their sense of history is very long and deep. There is a uniqueness about Sacred Heart-St. Louis Parish that is shared by no other parish in the Archdiocese with the exception of St. Paul which is the first parish in the Archdiocese and the immediate predecessor and spiritual mother of St. Louis-Gervais.