I went to St. Patrick's on this St. Patrick's Day. I got there after Mass was over; so, I was not able to get inside. I did see some people wearing bowler hats and sashes in the colors of the Irish flag.
Saint Patrick's Mission Church was designed in the
southwestern style.
The
Colorado History Museum sponsors a tour of this church as described below.
Bishop Machebeuf created St. Patrick parish in 1881.
Michael J. Carmody, the first pastor, initially said Mass in the fire station
at 15th and Boulder streets while awaiting completion of a small brick church
at 3233 Osage Street, in 1883. In 1884, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of
Carondelet opened a parish school, living in the basement while using the first
floor as a school and the second floor as a church.
St. Patrick's finally received a steady pastor with the
1885 appointment of Father Carrigan by Bishop Machebeuf. Carrigan, an Irishman
born and trained in New York, had come to Colorado after his ordination. A
capable and outspoken priest, he had served at St. Mary's in Breckenridge, St.
Mary's in Denver, and as pastor of St. Ann (Annunciation) parish before coming
to St. Patrick's.
This young priest proved to be an able and popular
pastor. He paid off the parish debt and, in 1889, enlarged the church and
school. Father Carrigan aggressively boosted church attendance by urging his
flock to bring non-Catholic friends to Mass each Sunday. Non-Catholics were
also welcome in the church's public reading room.
North Denverites in those days were separated from the
city by the South Platte River and a maze of railroad tracks, where trains
killed and maimed people every year. Furthermore, the 15th Street bridge over
the Platte was so rickety that the city posted a notice at either end: "No
vehicles drawn by more than one horse are allowed to cross the bridge in opposite
directions at the same time."
Father Carrigan and his parishioners joined the crusade
to build a viaduct from downtown to North Denver as a safe crossing over the
river and rail lines. Mayor Robert W. Speer cleverly persuaded the railroads to
put up most of the cost of the viaduct. Completed in 1911 for $500,000, this
three-quarter-mile-long trussed viaduct left Denver at 20th Street but landed
in North Denver at 33rd Avenue--at the front door of St. Patrick's.
Parishioners praised God for what is now the oldest and largest trussed viaduct
in Colorado, and North Denverites still call its bend "Carrigan's
Curve."
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