A historic stone church stands at the end of a concrete path, with a commemorative plaque mounted on a large rock in the foreground under a blue sky with scattered clouds.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in southern Colorado near Antonito and the New Mexico border was established in 1854 is the oldest parish in Colorado. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun)

Colorado’s first church began as an adobe structure built in 1863 to serve the Hispano settlers of the San Luis Valley. It burned on Ash Wednesday in 1926 and was rebuilt the next year. The distinctive twin bell towers were added in 1948.

There was a second Ash Wednesday fire, in 2016, but the structure at the center of the town of Antonito was mostly spared. The site was added to the National and State Register of Historic Places in 2018. Those designations recognized the church’s history, but also its stained-glass windows, hand-crafted altar, statuary and other artworks. The Our Lady of Guadalupe feast day is Dec. 12, but if you don’t want to wait for a formal celebration, the church has a sacred labyrinth, El Santuario de los Pobladores, out back where people are invited to meditate and pray while walking through the walled maze.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe

S Maple, Fruita, CO 81521, USA (39.137677, -108.730594)
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