The Seventh Day Adventists established their first church in Denver in 1880 at the corner of Lawrence and Twenty-third streets. Rev. E. R. Jones came from California to serve the small congregation. Later he held tent meetings on the large vacant lot at Twenty-third and Welton. In 1891 the church at Kalamath and West Eleventh was purchased from the Third Congregational Church, and considerably enlarged. This is now the largest church in the Colorado Conference, its membership numbering 350. There are now (1918) six churches in Denver, with a total membership of over 600. These are the First Church, at Kalamath Street and Eleventh Avenue; the Second Church, at East Thirteenth Avenue and York Street, which was dedicated March 2t€ž 1918. Meetings have been held there for some time, but the dedication could not be held until the church was free from debt. The Third Church, a colored congregation, is at 2917 Glenarm. The Fourth Church is a Scandinavian church, at the corner of East Thirty-sixth Avenue and High Street. The fifth church is the South Denver Church, at 2303 South Cherokee. The sixth church is a North Denver church at West Thirtieth Avenue and Perry Street.
In the Colorado Conference, including Denver, there are fifty-three churches. The Western Slope of Colorado is part of the Utah Conference. There are there-fore twelve churches to be added to make the total for Colorado, sixty-five churches. The Colorado Seventh Day Adventist Conference was organized in 1883, and holds yearly sessions. The president in 1918 is Rev. W. A. Gosmer, of Denver. The total membership in 1918 in the Colorado Conference is 2,517. This is over 3,000 for the state.
The Colorado Conference established a sanitarium in Boulder about twenty years ago. This is for the treatment of all cases except tubercular. It is known as The Colorado Sanitarium.
The Campion Academy, located three miles south of Loveland, belongs to the denomination and now has about 150 students of both sexes. This was established about a decade ago.
At Jarosa, in the San Luis Valley, the denomination has an industrial school established about six years ago. There are over a hundred pupils, who in part work their way by labor on the farm. The denomination owns a thousand acres in this section.
The Colorado Sanitarium has established a “health food” store in Denver for the denomination.
When the Colorado Conference was established in 1883 there were less than three hundred members of the denomination in the state. These were established in churches in Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Hillsboro and Loveland. The denomination began its big organizing work at this time, and within a few years there were churches at all leading points in the state.
Source: History of Colorado, Wilbur Fisk Stone, Editor, Volume I, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918