Colorado's oldest Protestant congregation celebrates 165 years of worship

By Kevin Strong, Writer/Editor

For churchgoers at one Central City church, "putting on your Sunday best" took on special meaning today. The congregation at Central City's St. James Church celebrated 165 years of worshipping together. 

This tradition of dressing up in 1850s-period clothing began around 10 years ago and has become a much-anticipated tradition.

It was 1859, and gold had just been discovered in what would become Clear Creek County. The population of Central City ballooned to 7,500 as prospectors and others looking to make their fortunes off of the miners flocked to the mountain community. Among them was Clara Brown, known locally as "Aunt Clara."

Brown was a freed slave from the East and is believed to be the first African American in the Colorado territory. 

She opened a laundry business in Central City because, after all, mining is a dirty business. With no shortage of customers, her business proved quite successful, and she would go on to become one of Colorado's leading philanthropists of that era. 

She was also a devout Christian and joined with around 30 other locals and two traveling Methodist preachers to form St. James Church. In those early years, the congregation met in her home. They quickly set about building a more permanent building.

"This building itself was constructed from 1864 until 1872. It took quite a while and quite a bit of money, with a couple of fits and starts," said Pastor Jack Van Son, who has led this congregation for the past three years. 

"Poor construction in the beginning forced them to stop and restart. Money was always a problem," he said. 

Clara Brown contributed around half of the construction costs.

Even before the church was complete, it had become a pillar in the community. 

"Back in 1868, even before the sanctuary was finished, the community established what we have recently verified was the first and now oldest public lending library, which still exists downstairs," said Van Son. 

Those books still sit on the original shelves, though the church no longer lends them out.

Those books are not the only historic documents cherished by the church. Church members were cleaning out a crawlspace and found a box of dusty papers. They were going to just throw it out but decided to take a look through first. One sheet of paper stood out: the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," handwritten on a piece of scrap paper. 

"One of the regular congregants of this church in the late 1800s was Julia Ward Howe. She was the writer of the battle hymn of the Republic. ... The last time she was here in 1904 when she was 86 years old, she grabbed a piece of scrap paper and wrote the battle hymn in her own hand, signed it, and left it to the then-bishop of the church as a memento for the church," said Van Son. 

Van Son says the Smithsonian Museum reportedly expressed interest in acquiring the paper, though they're content to keep it in the church for now.

Visitors to the church will find that and many other historic artifacts in a room on the first floor, in what used to be the parsonage where the pastor lived, including tickets given out to churchgoers when they paid their tithes upon entering the church—a sort of entry ticket at the time which entitled them to a seat in a pew, as well as the needles and thread used to sew together the panels of carpeting which used to cover the floor of the second-floor sanctuary.

The second-floor sanctuary underwent a renovation in the 1970s. The floor had weakened to the point of being unsafe, and while the congregation at the time was small—about two dozen people—they raised the money to completely restore the sanctuary with new carpet—purchased from the same English company in the same design as the original—new pews, and refurbished and repainted iconography within the sanctuary.

But for all the history of the church, Van Son says it's the people who make the difference, which is especially crucial given the current climate. 

"Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that Christianity not only in Colorado but also in the United States and the world has really diminished quite significantly over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the church doesn't play much of a role in any city these days. This church was not alone in that," he said. 

Attendance waned, and the Methodist conference withdrew its support for the church. Congregants reached out to Van Son, who had retired from the tech industry and pastoring, convincing him to step into the new role leading this congregation, "which is quite frankly something I did not want to do because I was supposed to be retired," quipped Van Son. "I argued with the Lord about that. Don't argue with the Lord. He always wins."

Van Son took the helm, and after the first service with an attendance of eight (including his wife, he says), he says the congregation has grown to around 65 in-person members and over 200 online members.

Van Son takes no credit for that increase, saying God was responsible. 

"I feel as though I have been honored by God in a way I have never expected in my life—to be the pastor, to be the shepherd of his people in this church at this time." He looks forward to continuing to lead this congregation into the future. "To be responsible for this, the oldest congregation in Colorado, is something I still cannot fathom in my own heart."