Cathedral of St. John in The Wilderness - History

History

Father John H. Kehler traveled from Virginia to the group of mining camps known as Denver City in January 1860 and delivered the first public services of the Episcopal Church in what would become Colorado Territory. He eventually established the parish of St. John’s in the Wilderness, so named because the nearest Episcopal parish was seven hundred miles away in Kansas.

The first cathedral was at 20th and Welton and held its first services in 1881. Dean H. Martyn Hart was the first dean of the cathedral and he worked with other Denver clergy in 1887 to create the Denver Charity Organization, the first community charity solicitation fund in the United States - later renamed the United Way.

A fire at the church in 1903 led to the construction of the current cathedral block at 14th and Washington. Dean Hart would lead the construction of the new building and it would host its first services in 1911.

After many years of "trial liturgies" for the Episcopal Church in the 1970s, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the third American BCP which had been ratified in Denver in 1931, was replaced, again in Denver, at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1979.

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