DENVER, ARCIDIOCESI 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 800,000 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, 2 colleges, 14 diocesan and 4 private High-Schools, and 37 parish schools; in 1946 there were 723 conversions. In the territory of D. there are 12 male and 26 female religious communities. The Cathedral is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.
The state of Colorado, which since 1850 had depended spiritually on the apostolic vicariate of Leavenworth, began to be colonized in 1852 by Spanish settlers who came from New Mexico. Following the discovery of gold in 1858, this territory’s population increased so greatly that on 5 February 1868 the Holy See raised it to the apostolic vicariate of Colorado and Utah, at the request of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866). In 1871 the territory of Utah came under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of S. Francisco, and on 8 August 1887 Colorado itself became a diocese, with its see at D., remaining suffragan to Santa Fe until its elevation to a metropolitan see on 15 November 1941, on which occasion the diocese of Pueblo was created on the same day, formed by detaching territory from II.