HOLY NAME (1907)

Chugging, puffing steam from a hot springs led to the naming of Steamboat Springs, where James Harvey Crawford built the first cabin in 1875. A cluster of settlements followed along the Yampa River between Sod and Spring creeks.

Father William J. Howlett, who first visited Steamboat to say Mass in 1880, reported:

The vast district of Northwestern Colorado, comprising the counties of Jackson, Routt, Moffat and Grand, has been the slowest part of the state to receive settlers. Cut off by mountain ranges from railroads and markets, it has been left to herds of cattle and a few venturesome spirits who cared to brave solitude and privation.

Steamboat Springs did not flourish until the Denver, Salt Lake & Pacific Railroad arrived in 1909. Anticipating a railroad boom, Bishop Matz authorized creation of Holy Name parish. Early Masses were held by John James Meyers, pastor of St. Peter's in Kremmling. He rode horseback to Steamboat to say Mass in homes, the Masonic Lodge, and the newspaper office of the Steamboat Springs Pilot.

On June 5, 1911, Father Meyers bought a lot and house, nailed a giant cross atop the white frame cottage, and converted it to a house of God. He then moved to Steamboat, where he found a home with the large family of Frank M. Light. Light, in 1905, had opened F.M. Light & Sons (of whom there were seven), a Western clothing store. Light not only fed and housed Father Meyers, but presumably outfitted him in the best Western garb available.

First on horseback, then by rail and auto, Father Meyers traveled several hundred miles each Sunday to missions at Fraser, Kremmling, Oak Creek, and outlying ranches in his vast parish, which stretched from Walden and Kremmling to the Utah border. Father Paul D. Slattery visited Steamboat in 1937 and reported to Bishop Vehr that Father Meyers' "fortune amounts to about $75," and "he is failing rapidly due to his advanced age." Father Meyers lived in a little room built onto the church until the Meunch family living next door took him in shortly before his fatal heart attack on December 31, 1938.

"The mountain priest," as people were reminded at the time of his death, had come to Colorado for his health and lived to be the oldest priest in the diocese. At his funeral, the crowd was too large to squeeze into the little Holy Name Church. "I know of no priest," said Archbishop Vehr, "more beloved by the people he served."

Father Edward Prinster, the second pastor, built a rectory in 1948 and established St. Martin Chapel in Oak Creek. He began planning a new Steamboat church but was killed in a fall from the roof of the rectory in 1956. Father Kenneth Funk, the next pastor, completed a new church on the old site. F. M. Light had donated an additional lot, and the congregation bought another for this spacious, modern brick church and rectory, a $100,000 project designed by J.K. Monroe and dedicated June 8, 1966.

Fathers Joseph Leberer, David Croak, Daniel Balzereit, Francis Ciaptacz, and Thomas Barry served as pastors until Monsignor Thomas Dentici arrived in 1983. By that time, Steamboat Springs had grown into a ski and summer resort as well as a ranching and mining center, boasting a 1980 population of 5,098. Holy Name parish had 250 registered families. Under Monsignor Dentici, Holy Name purchased the rest of its half-block site and began an active social ministry. A house next to the church was acquired so that parish volunteers could renovate it as a hospitality center, which provided food, clothing, shelter, and pastoral care to anyone in need. The former rectory was converted to a retreat center.

"The symbol of the Oak Street church," as the Steamboat Springs Pilot noted upon Holy Name's seventy-fifth anniversary, are "the open hands, outstretched to cradle members of the parish family and extended to welcome visitors." Monsignor Dentici added:

It is one thing to preach about charity. We look upon our mission as an outward, tangible example of what charity should be. Our hospitality center is the only twenty-four-hour facility in Routt County. We consider it our way of paying back the community for what it had done for us. Our hands are not just outstretched but willing to get dirty.