SACRED HEART (1930)

William K. Gilcrest organized the Gilcrest Town Company in 1906. By 1930, the farm town had enough Catholics to justify establishment of a mission, Sacred Heart. At first St. Peter's in Greeley and then Our Lady of Peace sent priests to the little dirt-streeted hamlet of Gilcrest, where the faithful erected a modern cinderblock church in 1967. Parishioner Virginia Chacon, in a 1988 interview, explained:

We built this church for about $20,000 on the site of the old white frame church. That old church, heated only by an old pot-bellied stove, was cold in the winter. Roughly fifty people go to our Mass, which is at 5:30 on Saturday afternoons, although there are 100 families signed up who should be going. One of our special parish events is an annual blessing of the cars.