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About Christ the King Catholic Church
At first, Franciscan priests from St. Elizabeth's
in Denver traveled up Bear Creek Canyon to offer masses in Evergreen's
Episcopal chapel. Later, Monsignor John Moran of St. Joseph's in
Golden tended to the Evergreen faithful, establishing Christ the
King mission in 1924.
Shortly afterwards, George F. Cottrell donated a church site on
the west side of the highway - a lovely, ponderosa pine-shaded site
with the Evergreen Cemetery to the north and Dedisee Park to the
south. With generous contributions from the John Vails, Edward Delehanty,
Herbert Farrall, Joseph Little, Herbert White, and others, a rustic
moss rock and log chapel was completed in 1935. John K. Monroe designed
the structure, which was dedicated by Bishop Vehr in April 1936.
Barry J. Wogan was assigned to Christ the King as its first pastor,
followed in 1949 by John H. Kelly. Not until 1951, with the appointment
of Joseph Bosch as the first resident pastor, did the little mountain
town become independent of St. Joseph's in Golden.
George Greer and his family donated a rectory with a landscaped
patio, while other parishioners helped construct a roadside shrine
to St. Jude and an outdoor altar dedicated to Our Sorrowful Mother.
Donald A. McMahon took a special interest, while serving as pastor,
in gracing the picturesque church with fine art, including a life-sized
Pieta fashioned of lead by Denver artist William Joseph. In 1956,
Archbishop Vehr blessed a $75,000 parish hall, designed by architect-parishioner
Frank W. Kullman, for the congregation of around 150 households.
Father Leo Blach, who became pastor in 1964, purchased seventeen
acres of adjacent land in 1966. The following year, the parish sold
its property across the road to the State Highway Department, which
was widening Colorado 74 to accommodate the rapid growth transforming
what had been a little town of 1,027 in 1950 to a city of 6,376
by 1980.
The first parish council, formed in 1968, hired John V. McCarthy
Associates of Detroit to conduct a fund drive for a new church and
education center. After pledges reached the $88,000 mark in 1970,
ground was broken for a new church and parish hall designed by Seracuse
and Lawler, a Denver architectural firm.
Archbishop Casey blessed the new $247,000 church on May 24, 1971.
It seated 500 and had five lower-level classrooms. The old stone
church was razed, having been outgrown by a parish that had come
to number over 500 households. To reach his far-flung flock, Monsignor
Robert F. Hoffman experimented with monthly service in "little
parishes" scattered around the foothills.
Nevertheless, the parish center remained in the multilevel, cantilevered
complex built around the new rustic moss rock church. Surrounded
by ponderosa trees, Christ the King's impressive parish plant is
a beacon for high country Catholics.
John J. Murphy, the pastor in 1988, said that Evergreen is now "a
bedroom community, as the majority of its residents commute to Denver
for work, shopping, and cultural events, but find a hometown, full-service
parish in Christ the King.
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