IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY (1967)

Northglenn was laid out in 1959 by Perl-Mack Homes, Inc., on what had been the ranch of Thomas B. Croke, an Irish Catholic who pioneered irrigated farming and ranching and built the mansion at 1075 Pennsylvania Street in Denver.

This new Adams County suburb grew rapidly, reaching a population of 29,847 by 1980. As the area began to boom, interested Catholics were invited to a parish organizational meeting at Leroy School on September 1, 1967. Over 380 attended and organized a parish council to raise money for a new church. With the help of large dowries from the neighboring parishes--Holy Cross in Thornton, Our Lady of Sorrows in Eastlake, and Holy Trinity in Westminster--groundbreaking took place in March 1969. By the time the altar was constructed of four large chunks of granite and consecrated on February 1, 1970, Immaculate Heart of Mary claimed 1,350 registered families.

Martin J. McNulty, the founding pastor, and Archbishop Casey blessed the modern, low-slung church with its conical roof on April 30, 1970. A new parish activity center was built in 1984, and the old one was remodeled into Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel. In a symbolic move to tie this new ultramodern suburban church to the mother parish of the archdiocese, the statue of the Blessed Virgin that used to be on top of Cathedral High School before it closed in 1982 was moved to the Northglenn church.

Thomas S. Fryar, the current pastor, requested in 1988 that the faithful "in the name of Christ become involved and active in your parish and its works. The Lord has placed you within this faith family for a purpose!"

The 2,800 families of Immaculate Heart of Mary have fifty different ministries in which to become involved, ranging from a toddler care cooperative to funeral meals, from a prayer chain to joining the greeters who welcome newcomers to what the congregation, from the very beginning, strove to make the "Parish of Love."