First Mass

Conejos, Colorado †inferred

June 1857

LocationConejos
State/TerritoryColorado
CountyConejos
Modern DiocesePueblo
Historical DioceseDiocese of Santa Fe
DateJune 1857 †
PriestFr. N.S. Montano
Religious OrderDiocesan / Secular clergy
RiteRoman (Latin) Rite
ExpeditionHispano settlement migration from Ojo Caliente/Abiquiu/El Rito, New Mexico
Confidenceinferred

Photos

From NRHP Nomination Document
From NRHP Nomination Document

Documentation

Notes

Genuine date disagreement across sources: the authoritative NRHP nomination (historycolorado.org) documents Bishop Lamy recognizing Conejos as Colorado's first parish and appointing Fr. N.S. Montano as first resident priest in June 1857, but does not mention a discrete first-Mass event. Other, less rigorously sourced accounts claim an earlier Mass in 1856 in a temporary jacal (log/pole/earth) structure at the Guadalupe-Conejos settlement, with Fr. Montano recorded elsewhere as arriving summer 1855. Using June 1857 as the best-documented date

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