A Brief History of Fairplay by Linda Bjorklund

Author:Linda Bjorklund
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Photo by author.

The story is told that Father Dyer, while on his rounds in the San Luis Valley, made stops at nearby Fort Garland and Tom Tobin’s ranch to hold services. He learned later that Father Machebeuf had extracted a promise from Tobin that only the Catholic clergy would be allowed to conduct services thereafter, as “only they could solemnize marriages or do anything right.”

Father Machebeuf supervised the building of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in a residential area of Fairplay in 1874. The church became a mission of the Breckenridge parish and later of the Leadville church.

Meanwhile, a “stubby little sawed-off man with a grizzled beard” representing the Presbyterian mission came to Colorado in 1870. Reverend Sheldon Jackson made a trip by stagecoach to the gold-mining town of Fairplay in 1872 and found a small group of Christian people that inspired him to organize a one-room frame church that was built and dedicated in 1874. Originally named the First Presbyterian Church of Fairplay, the small structure was renamed the Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel many years later.

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