Thomas J. Noel

Thomas J. Noel was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and baptized there by Rev. John F. Welsh in St. Mary of the Annuciation Church on June 17, 1945. Thirteen years later Tom received the Ad Altare Dei badge, a Boy Scout award for outstanding altar boys. After completing a B.A. in history and an M.A. in Library at Science at the University of Denver, Noel earned his M.A. and Ph.D in history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is now Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado at Denver, where he has taught Colorado and Western History since 1976. He and his wife Vi are members of St. James the Lesser Parish in Denver's Montclair neighborhood. Noel is a Denver Landmark Preservation Commissioner, Sheriff of the Denver Posse of Westerners and a board member of the Denver Public Library Friends Foundation.

Colorado Catholicism is the ninth book Professor Noel has authored or co-authored. The City & The Saloon, Denver: Rocky Mountain Gold and Denver: The City Beautiful & Its Architects, have been Colorado best-sellers which won prizes from the Colorado Authors League, the University of Colorado, the Denver Partnership and the Colorado Preservation Alliance. Besides teaching and writing, Professor Noel is noted for his walking tours of bars, cemeteries and churches.