Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  Children flew through the air on the church playground swings. Families filled their plates with potluck food and old timers and summer timers chatted, recalling another time, same place.

On Sunday, the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church celebrated its 105th anniversary with an after church party open to the community.

NCPC was born between the Caribou silver boom of the 1870s and the tungsten boom of 1910. Nederland was supported by area ranches, miners and mills and Eldora was supported by several gold mines.

In 1899 Nederland’s postmistress, Mrs. C.M. Edwards began a Sunday School which met in local homes, the school and the town hall. After a tungsten boom that occurred before World War I, Nederland’s population exploded up to 5,000 residents resulting in the need for more structured, organized social and religious gatherings.

In 1912, the Presbyterian church was organized with a 17-member congregation and led by Wayne Shoddy, a student at McCormick Seminary. In 1914, the church’s sanctuary was built with supplies and labor by its members. The bell in the bell tower, which still rings, came from the Boulder Fire Department.

With the end of the mining boom in 1918, influenza spread through the town, wiping out families, shutting down the mines and mills. The railroad between Boulder, Ward and Eldora was destroyed when the bridges were taken out during a flash flood.

During these hard times, the church building was never abandoned. Old time residents Gladys Proctor, Dick Fraser and Ruby Jackson were members of the church then and even though only 150 people remained in town, church activity continued.

When the US entered World War II, remaining residents left to serve in the war or work in defense plants. From 1945 to 1950 church services continued as usual, attended, on average, by 37 people.

In 1968 the sanctuary was remodeled and the church paid $50 to be connected to the town’s sewer system. The west addition was built between 1970 and 1972 without a loan or mortgage, with donated funds from the congregation. The addition has been used for Sunday School, a food pantry, a clothing closet and a day care center. The Fellowship Hall also hosted the annual Community Thanksgiving Dinners which are still carried on today.

Nederland’s economy changed in the 1960s when the Lake Eldora ski area was built and more families moved in. In 1970, Gloria Fraser began the first day care center in town and in 1975, the church opened the Community Preschool, with 12 children attending. It closed in 1986.

NCPC went through difficult times, beginning a rebuilding period in 1989, when Rev. Mark Lake was hired as pastor, the first full time pastor in years. Membership increased, the stained glass windows were created by Larry Cox.

When Mark Lake resigned in 1993, Rev. Holly Heuer became the part-time pastor, during which time the sanctuary was remodeled and a Sunday School director hired.

Over the years since then, the NCPC has steadily grown, becoming a haven for Eldora and Nederland’s summer residents as well as hosting a summer music program, and in recent years, under the leadership of Pastor Hansen Wendlandt, who has focused on bringing the church into the community through various educational programs and outreach social events.

On Sunday, August 20, the potluck lunch was an example of his work to share the church with the community. During the lunch, those who attended created and signed large thank you cards for all the teachers and staff of Nederland schools as they begin the school year.

(Originally published in the August 31, 2017 print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)