OUR LADY OF THE MOUNTAINS (1915)

William J. Howlett, the pioneer church builder and historian of Colorado Catholicism, started the parish in mountain-rimmed Estes Park. He found an angel in Patrick J. Walsh of Davenport, Iowa, who vacationed in Estes Park. When the Walshes' young son Walter died on one of these vacations, Walsh gave the money to erect a memorial church, St. Walter's.

Father Howlett, who as pastor of St. John the Evangelist's in Loveland had been saying missionary Masses in Estes Park, accepted Walsh's offer and bought a site for $150. That summer of 1915, he completed a little chapel, with an additional gift of $750 from a Chicago tourist, George J. Cooke, and $418.90 from Father Howlett's family. Father Howlett said the first Mass in St. Walter's on August 29, 1915. With the end of the summer tourist season, he closed the church and turned over the keys to his successor as pastor of St. John's.

When Francis Kappes became pastor in Loveland in 1944, he took a special interest in St. Walter's. For the growing flock of all-year residents in Estes Park, Father Kappes began making winter visits. As St. Walter Church had no heating, he offered these off-season Masses in the science room of the Estes Park High School.

With encouragement of his Estes Park congregation, Father Kappes broke ground for a larger, heated church on April 5, 1947. Justus Roehling designed a rustic structure of massive chunks of native granite and peeled logs. Raw beams and moss rock served as both exterior and interior of the church, which was dedicated in 1949 and renamed Our Lady of the Mountains. Beautifully sited amid ponderosa pines on a hilltop overlooking Lake Estes, it became a favorite with residents and tourists alike.

Membership climbed, leading Archbishop Vehr to assign Charles Sanger as the first full-time resident pastor in 1956. Upon Father Sanger's retirement in 1974, Daniel Bohte took charge and completed the fine two-story center attached to the side of the church. Daniel J. Flaherty and then Manuel Gabel guided this mountain parish, which by 1988 had grown to over 300 families, not to mention many summer tourists who patronize Our Lady of the Mountains.