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ST. DOMINIC (1889)During Denver's bonanza days, the town of Highlands emerged in northwest Denver. Between its creation in 1875 and its annexation to Denver in 1896, Highlands ballyhooed its elevated site and elevated morals. Bounded by Zuni Street on the east, West 38th Avenue on the north, Sheridan Boulevard on the west, and West Colfax Avenue on the south, Highlands flourished, and Catholics in the area proposed a new parish. This possibility also interested Joseph P. Carrigan, pastor of the overcrowded St. Patrick Church at West 33rd Avenue and Osage Street. When J. T. Murphy, OP (Order of Preachers), a Dominican, came West hoping that the sunshine would restore his health, Father Carrigan housed him at St. Patrick's and proposed splitting his huge parish to create a Dominican parish. After Bishop Matz approved St. Dominic's formation, Father Murphy said the first Mass on October 6, 1889, in the Rocky Mountain Seed Store (now a duplex apartment) at 2749 West 25th Avenue. Dry goods boxes served as both pews and altar in this dusty, makeshift chapel, yet parishioners proliferated, spilling out the front door on Sundays. This overflow inspired St. Dominic's to move services to the old Highlands Town Hall, which stood at the southwest corner of West 26th Avenue and Federal Boulevard. Edward D. Donnelly, OP, was appointed the first pastor, with Father Murphy assisting. That summer of 1889, St. Dominic's raised $500 to buy three lots at the northwest corner of West 25th Avenue and Grove Street. A two-story brick, Romanesque church/school was dedicated by Bishop Matz in May 1890. Five Dominican sisters from St. Clara Convent in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, arrived on August 15, 1890. Sisters Evangelist, Lorenza, Dolora, Aqunin, and Zita converted the first floor of the church/school into four classrooms, where they welcomed young scholars a month later. By the end of the year, a convent was erected next to the school, at 3035 West 25th Avenue. The school overflowed with 180 students by 1898, when a two-story addition was added to the rear of the church with four more classrooms as well as an auditorium. The vibrancy of the new parish was tested by a fire in February 1891. Undaunted, parishioners reconstructed immediately, using the charred ruins as a foundation. Father Donnelly's successors included several interim pastors and Dominican fathers B. F. Logan (1892-1894), M. P. O'Sullivan (1894-1896), S. R. Brockbank (1898-1902), Francis A. O'Neil (1902-1909), Philip J. Vallely (1909-1914), P. B. Doyle (1914-1918), and Roscoe F. Larpenteur, (1918-1927). Father Larpenteur oversaw construction of the magnificent church that still graces Federal Boulevard. Father Vallely had acquired the eleven-lot site for $7,621.73 and started a building fund. In 1921, St. Dominic's hired Denver architect Robert Willison, the designer of the Denver Municipal Auditorium. Willison designed an English Gothic church of simple but grand appointments, eighty-five feet wide and 165 feet deep, seating 850. The Caen stone interior rose from the nave, transepts, and aisles in columns and groined arches to a ceiling soaring eighty feet overhead. Traditionally cruciform in floorplan, the church sported three rose windows, a red Spanish tile roof, and understated twin towers. The exterior facing of dark grey, light grey, and buff stone came from quarries in Monte Vista, Colorado, and Boise, Idaho. St. Dominic's new home included a large basement housing the heating plant, a kitchen, large hall, store rooms, and restrooms. The main floor contained a spacious sanctuary, two sacristies, sexton's rooms, baptistry, and vestibule, with a choir gallery and grand organ loft overhead. After three years of construction, this $270,000 house of God was dedicated by Bishop Tihen on February 14, 1926, a snow-frosted but sunny Sunday. In their own snowy white garb, dozens of Dominican priests, brothers, and sisters gathered to celebrate the consecration of this home base for Rocky Mountain Dominicans. A new $30,000 rectory, completed in 1923 at 2905 Federal, replaced the old house of Frank Goudy at 2431 Federal, which had been used for early-day services and then as a rectory. The old church was remodeled in 1933 as a little theater, where the Aquinas Players entertained. St. Dominic's also boasted the first parish credit union in the diocese, which opened its doors in 1933 to help parishioners cope with the Great Depression. Following completion of the lovely new church, Father Larpenteur resigned in 1927 to do missionary work. He was succeeded by Patrick Robert Carroll, OP, who in 1933 was elected prior of St. Dominic's in Washington, D.C. Subsequent Dominican pastors included J. J. Reagan (1933-1939), Leo L. Farrell (1939-1942), Vincent R. Hughes (1943-1948), Peter O'Brien (1949-1951), Joseph G. Forquer (1952-1957), Willard P. Roney (1958-1963), Michael McNicholas (1963-1968), Willard H. Leuer (1968-1970), Robert J. Miller (1970-1977), Kevin C. Thissen (1977-1984), and Albert G. Judy. St. Dominic's dedicated a new, twelve-room school south of the church on October 21, 1951. This $350,000 red brick school soon registered as many as 475 students, taught by eleven Dominican sisters. The school closed in 1973 and was sold. The old church likewise was sold, to become remodeled as a one-story apartment house, while the old convent with its rooftop cross is now the AAA Guest Lodge. The new (1940s) convent is now the parish center. Across Federal Boulevard from the new church, the land was cleared in 1984, and landscaped as Viking Park, which provides a magnificent foreground for the grand, Gothic church. "As in the days of our founder, St. Dominic," Father Judy stated in 1988:
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