DENVER, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – Archdiocese and capital city of the state of Colorado (United States of America). Its territory comprises thirty-three counties in northern Colorado and, in 1948, had a population of approximately 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 91,000 were Catholics served by 136 diocesan priests and 116 religious priests, with 84 parishes, 84 missions, 29 chapels, one diocesan seminary, two colleges, 14 diocesan and 4 private high schools, and 37 parochial schools. In 1946, there were 723 conversions. Within the territory of Denver, there are 12 male and 26 female religious communities. The cathedral is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.
The state of Colorado, which from 1850 had been under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicariate of Leavenworth, began to be settled in 1852 by Spanish colonists from New Mexico. Following the discovery of gold in 1858, the territory’s population grew so rapidly that on 5 February 1868 the Holy See erected it as the Apostolic Vicariate of Colorado and Utah at the request of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866). In 1871, the territory of Utah was placed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of San Francisco, and on 8 August 1887 Colorado itself became a diocese with its see in Denver, remaining a suffragan of Santa Fe until its elevation to a metropolitan see on 15 November 1941, on which occasion the Diocese of Pueblo was simultaneously created by separating it from its territory.