Our History

Sacred Heart of Jesus Community

By 1890, Sacred Heart of Jesus was the second largest Catholic Church in Boulder with over 1,300 registered households.

Vincent Reitmayr, a young German priest who served from 1875 to 1877, built the first church on two lots, purchased by Bishop Machebeuf in 1875, on the northwest corner of 14th and Mapleton.

Father Chrystosom Lochschmidt, OSB, pastor from 1889 to 1902, launched the parish school that thrives to this day.

The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary opened the parochial school for Sacred Heart of Jesus parish on September 4, 1900, in the two-story frame rectory that the Benedictines had built at 14th and Mapleton in 1891. The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary still serve the parish.

Sacred Heart was not the first Catholic school in Boulder County. That distinction belongs to Mount St. Gertrude Academy, which opened in 1892 in the meadow beneath Chatauqua, in what was known as the University Place Addition.

Plans to expand Sacred Heart of Jesus School began with Paul Fife, OSB, Pastor from 1943 to 1957, and were completed by Edward J. Vollmer, OSB, Pastor from 1957 to 1966. A junior high school building, a contemporary design by Rogers-Nagel-Langhart, opened in September, 1967.