Father John Lewis Dyer's achievements in Colorado mining towns are chronicled in his reprinted 1890 autobiography, The Snow-Shoe Itinerant. Called “father” because he was an old man with white hair, Dyer advocated muscular Methodism and helped build the church himself. Efforts by his fellow “sky pilots” to steer people to heaven by enforcing Colorado's saloon-closing law led to retaliation: the belfry of this church was dynamited. After being rebuilt with a new spire and an open, square bell tower, it was moved in 1977 from 107 North French Street to this site. Tasteful additions match the original Carpenter's Gothic elements
Father Dyer found a worthy successor in the Reverend Mark Fiester, the pastor who restored and enlarged this church, adding the stained glass window which depicts Dyer on “snowshoes” (i.e., skis).