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The San Jose Church is located a few feet off the
Gulnare Road, about eight miles west of Aguilar, in Las Animas County. It sits
on a small hill surrounded by tall pine and fir trees. Several saw mills and a
few cattle ranches line the countryside.
The first church of San Jose was located a few
miles west of the present church in a valley called Jaroso. It was built in the
late 1880s of adobe brick by the Catholics in the area who had strong faith, and
donated their labor and skill in order to have a chapel where they could
worship. The first priest to serve the people traveled on horse and buggy from
Holy Trinity in Trinidad. He would spend the night, then return the next day.
The adobe church was eventually closed for safety
reasons, and the current church built from materials brought from the Delagua
Coal Camp. With the close of the mine, people moved away and the valley became
desolate. St. Peter and Paul Church was dismantled and carefully rebuilt in
Gulnare.
Until the 1980s mass was said one a month. Today,
San Jose Church reflects the effect of the shortage of priests as mass is
celebrated only once a year in the summer, during the Feast of St. Joseph.
Parishioners join for a potluck dinner following the mass, and Catholic and
non-Catholic alike unite. Many parishioners attend mass in Aguilar.
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