This year, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Steamboat Springs celebrates its centennial, but as far back as 1889, a group of Episcopalians would meet in Steamboat Springs for services whenever a bishop happened to be in town. The group met in whatever space was available, and as was true of most gatherings among the earliest settlers, the ladies always brought food to share and provided a warm bed for the traveling clergy, who braved the weather to visit their far-flung flocks.
#At the turn of the century, the population of Episcopalians in the western U.S. was so sparse that Utah, Nevada and western Colorado were administered by one bishop, the Right Rev. Abiel Leonard. In 1897, he provided funds to the Steamboat congregation for two building lots at Ninth and Oak streets in hopes of establishing a mission there….