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Historic Building Preservation Projects

Town of Ward Post Office & Town of Ward Church

By High Altitude Finishes

October 21^st, 2021

Ward Post Office

Our company has been given the opportunity to restore several historic buildings in Boulder County. The Ward Post Office was established in 1863 when Colorado was still a Territory. Mail was delivered by horseback or freight wagons pulled by horses and mule. It is the oldest continuously operating Post Office in the mountains of Boulder County. We restored all the original windows, the bell tower and the exterior of this building. Restoration of the windows entailed removing the old glazing and reglazing 80 individual panes.

Union Congregational Church

The Ward Union Congregational Church, established in 1894, now serves as a Community Center for residents of the old Ward Colorado Mining District. We were given the opportunity to restore the South side of the church. The restoration project entailed removing and re-glazing 30 window panes in addition to two stained glass windows. This project was funded by the State Historical Fund (SHF) from History Colorado.

For this project, access was very difficult. Articulating lifts failed to do the job. We spent two days operating a 60 ft articulating lift that failed to compensate the steepness of the road. As with every project, having experience with access is key.

The church had not been restored in 30 years. We restored a total of six multi pane windows to their original shape. We also restored all the trim to its original shape. All decayed wood was replaced with cedar. The church was in really rough shape. The wood in all windows was severely decayed. All trim was loose and decayed as well. The metal on the siding was rusted.

We had to build platforms in order to work out of a 32 ft fully extended ladder.

We restored the windows by carefully removing the original stained glass. We had to carefully use heat guns to remove glue that was incorrectly used on the glass. Previous work was incorrectly done with PL-400 and other non adequate sticky glues. Other panes were incorrectly glazed with Silicone products and its derivatives.

For several broken glass panes we had to create precise templates in order to replace the panes with original wavy glass.

We also restored four West facing windows to their original functional shape. All windows were previously incorrectly glued in place. They had to be unglued, removed, sanded and all original wavy glass had to be reglazed. The windows had to be squared again and trim carpentry was used to restore the windows to a functional format. None of the glass panes were broken in the process.

All original glass was put back in place following historic restoration protocols for glazing.

Our company is very proud to be part of history. Georgia O'Keeffe painted the oil Church bell, Ward, Colorado and landscapes of the surrounding mountains when she visited Ward in 1917. Our next goal is to restore the bell tower of this church.