ST. WILLIAMS (1909)

Lancaster P. Lupton's 1836 fur trade fort was a crumbling adobe ruins by 1881, when the town was platted at the confluence of the South Platte River and Big Dry Creek.

Fort Lupton first received clerical attention in 1887 from William J. Howlett, pastor of St. Augustine's in Brighton. Masses were offered once a month or so in the home of James Gorman, a livery stable keeper, and in the meeting hall over Edward St. John's Dry Goods Store. Sister Loretta Clare, SC, then a little girl growing up in Fort Lupton, remembered riding bicycles with her friends to St. Augustine's in Brighton for Sunday services.

Fort Lupton's first mayor, Thomas Winbourn, the son of the town founder and a real estate dealer, was an Episcopalian. Yet, he donated land for a Catholic church, and a $10,000 gift from the Catholic Church Extension Society enabled Fort Lupton Catholics to build at 4th and Harrison in 1910. This traditional, front-gable, red brick church featured a Gothic entry, Gothic windows, and a rose window below the open bell tower. At the request of the Extension Society, the church was named Saints William and Juliana (her name was later dropped) in honor of the principal donors. Pastors from Brighton tended St. Williams as a mission church until 1920, when it became a mission of St. Nicholas's in Platteville.

After the Empson Packing Company (1898), the Silver State Canning, Creamery and Produce Company (1904), and the Great Western Sugar Company (1920) built plants in the area, Fort Lupton began to blossom. Many of the agricultural and food-processing plant workers were Hispanic Catholics.

Thomas Doran, who followed J. J. Shea as resident pastor at Platteville and missionary pastor at Fort Lupton in 1942, wrote to Archbishop Vehr that December:

There are about 400 Mexican people living in the [Fort Lupton] Spanish colony which is under government supervision. . . . Our church is so small that it couldn't begin to accommodate the numbers who should attend; also they have a very fine hall which the supervisor is willing to convert into a chapel. . . . I was told that the Pentecostals are quite zealous in their efforts to proselytize and Mr. Rud, the supervisor, feels that having Mass in the Colony would put an end to such activity.

Not until 1955 did Archbishop Vehr and Monsignor Mulroy, director of Catholic Charities, form a Special Committee on Migrant Labor Problems. It focused on the Fort Lupton Farm Labor Center, which over the course of a year housed as many as 17,000 men, some with families.

John W. Scannell, who succeeded Thomas Doran in 1955, established a mission station at the camp and recruited the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Victory in Brighton to establish a CCD program. Father Scannell also helped Hispanics set up a parish credit union in 1957.

"At my first Mass in Fort Lupton," Father Scannell recalled later, "about 100 people jammed in with about 100 more standing outside in the July heat." Father Scannell began renting the Star Theater for Sunday services, while laying plans for a larger church.

Finding 500 Catholic families in Fort Lupton while there were only about 125 at St. Nicholas's in Platteville, Father Scannell moved his residence to Fort Lupton, where he purchased 7.5 acres from Joseph Witherow for $7,500. In one of the poorer parishes in the archdiocese, Father Scannell spent two years scraping together pledges, loans, and cash to build a $92,500 church and parish center. Although Archbishop Vehr suggested he not ask the poor Hispanics for money, they pledged $8,000.

Joseph P. Marlow, an architect and member of Denver's St. James parish, designed a modern, flat-roofed rectangular church, 192 by forty-two feet. Buff-colored Colorado sandstone was used for the exterior, while the interior featured lush carpeting and redwood walls. As the low-slung, flat-roofed structure did not look like a church, people had trouble finding it until a large sign was added. Besides the 450-seat church, the new parish plant had classrooms for 350 children.

Archbishop Vehr dedicated the church and school on October 22, 1959. The Fort Lupton Press of October 8, 1959, marveled that the congregation had donated $5,600 in labor and materials, including 105 tons of sandstone that they had hauled in their trucks from the Buckhorn Valley ninety miles away, to build one of the most dramatic, modern churches in Weld County.

The Fall Festival, begun in 1972, includes a tribute to an honored person for his or her contribution to the parish. Another tradition at St. William's is the weekly King's Table luncheon where parishioners and others provided a low-cost meal for the elderly and anyone else who wishes to attend. John P. Morton, CSsR, pastor since 1984, worked with the Fort Lupton Ministerial Alliance to establish a food and clothing bank.

"This vibrant Catholic community," Father Morton reported in 1988, "continues to respond to Christ's call to love God and to love one another--yesterday, today, and forever."