Palmer Divide Research

St. Francis of Assisi Church (1888)

Also: the Old Stone Church

ChurchesLiving todayDouglas County

What we know

Rhyolite church dedicated Dec. 16, 1888, built by its members for $1,000; founding members included the lawyer William Dillon and German Catholic families from southeast of Castle Rock. Regular services only from 1930. The parish left in the early 1960s and the building became a restaurant (county map, S-0123).

Where it was

Pin on the Douglas County Historic Resource Map (DCHR-065; Douglas County and Douglas County Libraries, 2012, on the Larkspur Historical Society's Google map, S-0123). Where that map and ours place the same site, the pins mostly fall within about 300 feet. Good to a few hundred feet.

Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.

See it on the map

Sources

  • S-0045: Larkspur Historical Society website (larkspurhistoricalsociety.org)
  • S-0046: Douglas County Libraries, Archives & Local History: "Douglas County Timeline," "Douglas County Historic Sites," "Douglas County Schools Overview" (research collection PDFs 2, 7, 6)
  • S-0123: Douglas County Historic Resource Map (Douglas County Community Planning and Sustainable Development, the Douglas County History Research Center of Douglas County Libraries, and the Douglas County Historic Preservation Board, 2012), as put on Google Maps and Google Earth by the Larkspur Historical Society

Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.

Know more about St. Francis of Assisi Church (1888)?

Corrections, family stories, photographs, deeds, letters and maps are all welcome. Messages and files come to Michael Christensen privately; nothing appears on the site until it has been checked, and you'll be credited the way you ask.