Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

D. O. M.

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June 10, 1958

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Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

1. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Marker

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Mountains

Valley.

West.

America,

Mountains,

Hemisphere,

World,

Anglosphere.

Spain

Texas.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

2. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Marker

Looking west from County Road 13.

From the National Register Nomination prepared by Thomas H. Simmons and R. Laurie Simmons, 5/1/2018:
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church is significant in the area of Hispano Ethnic Heritage. Beginning in the late 1840s-early 1850s, Hispanos from northern New Mexico began the Euro-American settlement of the San Luis Valley of present-day Colorado. These early settlers (pobladores) brought with them traditions developed over two centuries of Spanish and Mexican control of the Southwest. This “cultural impress” on the new territory included the Spanish language; adobe brick as the most common building material; village

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

3. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (east/front elevation)

From the National Register Nomination: 
At the northeast and southeast corners of the church are square three-story towers with aluminum hipped domes. Slightly projecting orange brick frames each wall of the towers, providing a contrast to the gray concrete field brick. The first story of each tower on the front holds a narrow round-arch stained-glass window. The second story of each tower holds church bells and loudspeakers. The top of the second story features an orange brick corbelled cornice with dentils. The third story of each tower is slightly inset and displays three narrow blind arches on each face. An orange brick corbelled cornice with dentils tops the story. The domes are composed of aluminum sheets with a seam extending from each corner of the tower to the apex of the dome.

or plaza settlement patterns; communal irrigation systems (acequias); dome-shaped outdoor ovens (hornos); other traditional methods of agriculture and foodways; and folk arts, including rug weaving. In religion the newcomers were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and they soon raised village churches and brought Spanish and religious-inspired place names to the land.

The church is also important in the area of Social History. The church has been a focal point for community events since its initial founding in the 1850s. The present church has been the site of funerals, weddings, and feast days. The area south of the church has held community bonfires, an annual summer festival, and is planned as a site of a prayer labyrinth honoring the area’s settlers.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church is significant in the area of Architecture as an example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, as reflected in the twin square towers with aluminum hipped domes, use of contrasting gray concrete bricks and orange clay bricks, and round-arch windows. The church is notable as a work of Lakewood, Colorado, architect John K. Monroe, Sr., who designed the 1948 expansion of the church with its signature twin towers.

The church is also significant in the area of Art for its extensive installation of stained-glass windows, hand-crafted altar, statuary, and other works of art. The figural windows, very likely fabricated by Frank Watkins of Denver, portray saints and religious images of particular importance to Hispano devotion. The elaborate altar was fabricated in 1934 by assistant priest Nicholas Femenia, area carpenter Benjamin Chavez, and local artist Epifanio Trujillo, who earlier provided decoration for St. Cajetan’s Church in Denver.

The church retains a high level of integrity of design; the only addition after the period of significance is the small one-story restroom on the north (1970s). The church displays excellent integrity of workmanship as reflected in the decorative concrete brickwork, aluminum cloister domes, and finely executed stained glass, faux marbling, and other interior components. The district retains a high level of integrity of feeling with the large church parcel surrounded by small dwellings, open fields, and the remnants of the town plaza to the north.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

4. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (east/front detail)

From the National Register Nomination:  The symmetrical front (east) façade features an inset round-arch central entrance containing double wood doors with round-arch panels featuring a quatrefoil design. A stained-glass transom bears the church name and date: “Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe 1926.” Above the entrance is decorative brickwork employing the orange brick in decorative patterns, including vertical pilasters, an inverted V, and other shapes. Flanking the entrance are paired, orange, wire-drawn clay brick decorative pilasters (one narrow and one wider). At the level of the choir loft is a first-story cornice composed of corbelled orange brick with dentils. Above is an oculus stained-glass window with a slightly projecting brick surround.

Excerpt:  After an 1863 adobe church in this location partially burned in 1926, the 1927 rear portion of the building was constructed and attached to twin 1879 adobe towers and the façade that survived the conflagration. In 1948 the adobe towers and front were demolished, the nave was expanded one bay to the east, and the current facade and towers were erected. The church is also an example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style and includes extensive installations of stained-glass windows, a hand-crafted altar, statuary, and other works of art, much of which are the works of local craftsmen.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

5. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
(east/front gable niche)

From the National Register Nomination:  At the top of the gable face a niche holds a statue of Mary, with a dedication panel below. The niche and panel have slightly projecting gray brick surrounds. The panel appears to be composed of white stone and contains an incised cross with the following inscription:A Maria Inmaculada
En Nombre de la Parroquia
de Conejos
La Congregacion de las
Hijas de Maria
8 de Dic. 1854-1904.Installed in 1904, the statue of Mary survived the 1926 fire and was returned to the same location on the rebuilt façade the following year. When the church front was expanded in 1948, the statue was removed and then placed on the façade of the expanded church.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

6. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (northeast elevation)

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

7. Our Lady of Guadalupe Lourdes Grotto

From the National Register Nomination:  Located near the southeast corner of the church, Pedro Romero and his family constructed the Lourdes Grotto in 1954. A bronze plaque in Spanish near the north end of the grotto explains it was dedicated to the double centennial of the founding of Guadalupe (Conejos) and the papal declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Declared a Marian year shrine, the installation was inspired by the grotto at Lourdes, France. The shrine is constructed of native stone and is about 12 feet high and 25 feet wide. A white statue of Mary stands in an elevated, center niche on a concrete base, while a white statue of Bernadette kneels to the southeast. The shrine originally featured flowing water, which called “attention to the mystery of the healing waters of Lourdes.”

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 12, 2025

8. Our Lady of Guadalupe Lourdes Grotto Marker

El Sr. y Sra. Pedro Romero y Familia dedican esta gruta a la Inmaculada Concepción en el centenario de la Proclamación del dogma
Año Mariano 1954