ST. JOSEPH (1867)

"Our little church," Father Machebeuf wrote in 1867 of St. Joseph's in Golden, "is almost finished, although there are but two Catholic families in the town, and these represent four different nationalities."

Judge Jonas Johnson had donated a 300-by-600-foot church site on the north side of 14th Avenue near Ford Street. In 1874, he donated another twenty acres as a cemetery and possible church site. A white frame, $2,000 church was dedicated May 19, 1867, by Father Machebeuf, who brought out his choir from St. Mary's in Denver. "The church was thronged, mostly with non-Catholics," reported Father William Howlett, who was there, and the collection "amounted to only $26.15."

This tiny church at the base of South Table Mountain was the second church built in Golden, the 1859 gold-rush settlement on Clear Creek named for pioneer settler Tom Golden. "Golden City," as Father Machebeuf quipped in a letter to his brother in France, should be called "Iron City, for there is no gold here, but they have found rich iron mines." The gold lay fifteen miles up Clear Creek in the Central City area. The Baptist (1866), Calvary Episcopal (1869), Swedish Lutheran (1870), and First Presbyterian (1870, now the Foothills Art Center) churches also served pioneer Golden, a one-time territorial capital and urban rival of Denver.

Golden lost the territorial capital to Denver in 1867 and lost its hopes of becoming Colorado's rail hub in 1870 when the Denver Pacific and the Kansas Pacific steamed into Denver. Golden's golden hopes faded. After peaking at 2,730 in 1880, its population declined until 1940 when it finally climbed over the 3,000 mark.

Despite the dwindling population, St. Joseph's struggled to stay open. Thomas McGrath became the first resident pastor in 1871, followed by fathers L.B. Lebouc (1872-1873), S. Duroc (1873-1881), Anthony J. Abel (1881-1886), Martin P. O'Driscoll (1886-1888), George J. Morton (1888-1890), and Daniel Lyons (1891). In 1891, Bishop Matz, with some relief, turned over the poor, struggling parish to the Franciscans at St. Elizabeth parish in Denver. Briefly during the 1890s, the Franciscans turned over St. Joseph's to the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood, who also operated the nearby diocesan cemetery, Mt. Olivet.

Bernard Spiegelberg, OFM, began an ambitious pastorate in 1891, and in 1899 built a new, $8,000 brick church on the east side of the original frame structure. Lorraine Wagenbach, a long-time parishioner, described the 1899 church in "A Woman's Life in Golden":

With only 25 to 50 families in the parish . . . we knew nearly all of them . . . [U]nder the stewardship of Father John P. Moran we thoroughly memorized the Baltimore Catechism. [The 1899 church] was a red brick traditional church with a high steeple and a large gold cross that glistened in the sun. It had beautiful stained glass windows. . . . The altar was wood, painted to look like marble, and there were a half-dozen lifesize statues. The communion rail and pews were carved oak. The bell that pealed for over fifty years is now at the entrance of the new church.

Wagenbach's husband, Bill, recalls getting up at 3 A.M. on Sundays to start the old coal furnace to thaw the church out in time for the 8 A.M. Mass. Both Lorraine and Bill remember the scary nights of the 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses on South Table Mountain just behind the church.

The Franciscans worked to pay off the parish debt, enabling the church to be formally dedicated in June 1908. They returned a debt-free parish to the Denver diocese in 1913. Bishop Matz sent a French-born and trained priest, Robert Servant, as the pastor. Father Servant supported himself on the $15 a month he received as chaplain to the State Industrial School, which had been established in Golden in 1882 for juvenile delinquents aged ten to eighteen. A rectory had been built with the new church in 1899, but Father Servant used it as rental property to sustain his parish and lived with various parishioners.

After Father Servant's death, he was followed by Father John P. Moran, who built the mission of Christ the King (1936) in Evergreen. After the pastorate (1924-1940) of Father Moran, Barry Wogan guided St. Joseph's until 1949, adding a $19,959 hall north of the church on East Street. This hall, one of the largest in Golden, served Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Andrew Warwick, pastor from 1952-1964, saw the fast growing parish double from 200 to 400 families. In addition, he ministered to many boys sentenced to the State Industrial School and to about 150 Catholics who each year wound up behind bars at the Jefferson County jail in Golden. Father Warwick also served the Newman Club at the Colorado School of Mines and provided spiritual services to National Guard and Highway Patrol trainees at Camp George West.

After World War II, Golden's growth finally began to match the golden hopes of its town founders. The town grew from 3,175 in 1940 to 7,118 in 1960 to 12,237 in 1980. St. Joseph's parishioners were overflowing the old 1899 church by October 3, 1958, when Archbishop Vehr dedicated a $135,000, 450-seat church. Located across 14th Street from the old church, it was designed by architect John K. Monroe as a basement church able to sustain a traditional ecclesiastical superstructure if future growth required it.

The old church, rectory, hall, and grounds were sold in 1965 for $130,749 to the Adolph Coors Company, which demolished the structures to expand its parking lot for tourists, who came in ever increasing numbers to inspect the huge brewery and sample its products. Proceeds were used to begin construction of a $227,870, eight-classroom school on the 10th Avenue and Ulysses Street site.

Richard Mershon (1964-1970), Monsignor Thomas P. Barry (1970-1976), Monsignor Edward A. Leyden (1976-1977), George V. Fagan (1977-1982), and several interim pastors guided St. Joseph's through years of rapid growth in Jefferson County, where it had once been the only parish. St. Joan of Arc parish (1967) in Arvada, and Our Lady of Fatima (1958), and Christ on the Mountain (1975) parishes in Lakewood were established to care for newly suburbanized areas once within the boundaries of St. Joseph's.

Even with these new parishes, St. Joseph's continued to grow. Angelo Ossino, who became pastor on July 1, 1982, began working with the council on plans for a new parish plant on the twenty-acre expansion site on the north side of the Golden Cemetery, which Judge Johnson had donated in 1874. The result is a $1.6-million church and rectory. For the October 19, 1986, dedication, a procession of parishioners carried the crucifix from the old church to the new. The old cornerstone and church bell of the 1867 church were also brought to the new site and placed at the outside entrance.

The church is pinned to a hillside by over 150 caissons and designed to be warm and welcoming, to have the earthy feeling of the nearby foothills. The pie-shaped structure seats over 500 with no one more than nine pews from the altar. Designed by architects Keith Ames and Associates of Longmont, the dramatic exterior of brick and raw wood rises to a central cone over the altar. The exterior features a solar wall and garden, with a baptismal font and pool just inside the main entrance. Custom handcrafted furnishings adorn the interior, including a suspended sculptural ceiling in the Eucharistic chapel and stations of the cross carved in glass. Under its huge conical roof, the complex contains a record vault, a reconciliation room, a chapel, offices, a library, and a kitchen.

Archbishop J. Francis Stafford anointed the altar with holy oil, sprinkled parishioners with holy water, and set off the smoke detectors with clouds of incense. Parishioners thanked the archbishop with a traditional western "Howdy!" by presenting him with a Stetson hat. Thus, St. Joseph's, the second church to be built outside Denver by Bishop Machebeuf, became the first new Colorado church to be dedicated by Archbishop Stafford.