IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (1907)

Lafayette was founded in 1888 and incorporated in 1890 by Mary E. Miller. She named it for Lafayette Miller, her deceased husband, who had first homesteaded there in the 1870s. After the Millers found coal on their 640-acre spread, it evolved into the mining town of Lafayette.

Catholic miners in Lafayette persuaded Cyril Rettger, OSB, pastor of St. Louis's in nearby Louisville, to celebrate occasional Masses in their homes in 1904. When attendance swelled, they resorted to the basement of the Lafayette bank and even to the Masonic lodge for Catholic services.

With the encouragement of Father Cyril, the Lafayette congregation proposed a new parish in 1906. "The first collection," Father Cyril announced the next Sunday, "will be for an altar stone and a chalice." Soon afterwards, Lafayette Catholics bought land at the northeast corner of Cannon Street and Roosevelt Road to construct a church they named for St. Ida. By Easter Sunday, 1907, the $7,000 church was far enough along to house its first Mass. That August, Virgil Nisslein, OSB, became the first pastor of St. Ida's.

In this humble, white frame church with sheet-metal interior walls, Lafayette miners found strength during the bitter labor wars of the first two decades of the twentieth century. Half the congregation were forced to leave town during the 1910 coal strike. Nevertheless, Father Virgil and his tiny flock persisted and even helped tend missions in Superior, which had fifteen Catholic families, and Eastlake, which had an even smaller contingent.

The second pastor, Robert Murray, OSB, guided St. Ida's from 1914 to 1932. He was followed by another Benedictine, Urban Schnitzhofer, who purchased an unused building from the Columbine Mine Camp and converted it to a parish hall. After Father Schnitzhofer left in 1941, several pastors served briefly until the arrival of Rev. Joseph Hannan, OSB, in 1949.

Most of the coal mines had closed, but Lafayette began to grow during the 1950s as a bedroom community, a suburb of the flourishing Boulder-Denver metro area. This led Father Joseph in 1952 to purchase a new church site, which included a house that he converted to a rectory.

A modern, buff brick church with a red tile roof and life-sized Virgin over the entry was blessed by Archbishop Vehr in July 1954, when St. Ida's was rechristened Immaculate Conception in honor of the Marian Year. Father Martin Arno, the last Benedictine pastor, retired in 1968 because of failing health.

After losing the loyal and well-liked Benedictines, Immaculate Conception parishioners found new comfort in the Sisters of the Presentation. This Irish sisterhood moved to Louisville to teach at St. Louis School, then began visiting Immaculate Conception parish in 1971.

A Lafayette admirer donated a convent to another order, the Daughters of Charity. Sisters Patricia Ann Cleary and Carmen Ptacnik were the first to come, then Sister Hermine Regan, the first superior at Immaculate Conception. "Our work in Louisville is what our founder, St. Vincent de Paul, envisioned," Sister Mary Elizabeth Reed, superior of the order in Colorado, explained in 1987. "We work directly with the poor, visiting them in their homes, bringing them the Eucharist and sharing their losses. Besides directing the Religious Education Program in 1976, we worked with parishioners to open the Carmen Center three blocks from the church to provide food and clothing to the needy." Since 1979, Michael Kerrigan, a Colorado native, has been pastor of Immaculate Conception parish. Father Kerrigan's flock grew in the 1980s to more than 500 families, including descendents of early-day coal miners who started St. Ida's and sustained Immaculate Conception.