Mother Cabrini's foothills camp became a Golden shrine

High above Golden, the Mother Cabrini Shrine draws visitors for its hilltop view, but the land carries a history older than the stairs and statues. Before it was a shrine, this was the Queen of Heaven Orphanage Summer Camp, listed in the National Register for both its architecture and its social history.

The camp came out of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini’s work with Italian American families in the Denver area. The orphanage took in children whose families had been worn down by hard labor, illness, discrimination, and loss. For decades the foothills property served as a summer retreat and a small working farm, one piece of a larger system of care she built. Children who spent their winters in the city came up here to a place with room to run.

That makes the place more than a religious stop on the way up the mountain. It is physical evidence that Jeffco’s foothills once held institutions woven into immigration, childhood, public health, and charity. The setting was never incidental: the fresh air, the open space, and the distance from the crowded city were part of what the children came here to receive.

To trace the documented history, the National Park Service maintains a detailed page on the Queen of Heaven Orphanage Summer Camp.