The Colorado University Schools campus was the multi-collegiate campus spearheaded by the visionary missionary Bishop George Maxwell Randall of the Episcopal church

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

. Having a ministerial passion for education and seeing great need for it in frontier Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, Randall first established the Wolfe Hall collegiate school for girls in 1868, then in 1869 received a gift from Charles Clark Welch to begin this collegiate campus

Campus

A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...

 for boys. This land was on a small plateau overlooking Golden

Golden, Colorado

The City of Golden is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was...

 from the south, now annexed within the city limits. Three colleges were opened by Randall and the Episcopal church here: Jarvis Hall in 1870, Matthews Hall in 1872, and the Colorado School of Mines

Colorado School of Mines

The Colorado School of Mines is a small public teaching and research university devoted to engineering and applied science, with special expertise in the development and stewardship of the Earth's natural resources. Located in Golden, Colorado, CSM was ranked 29th, in America among national...

, then known as the Territorial School of Mines, in 1873. Jarvis Hall was a liberal arts, grammar and military school; Matthews Hall was a divinity school to train future Episcopal clergy for the region; and the Bishop strongly felt a School of Mines would be vital to the future of Colorado because of its mining economy. After Randall died in 1873 the campus began to be dismantled, with efforts within the church striving to remove its colleges to Denver. In 1874 the School of Mines was sold to the Territorial government after years of controversy over government support of a church-owned college. On April 4, 1878, Jarvis Hall burned, knocking a hole in the center of the campus, and shortly after on April 8 Matthews Hall was burned by arsonists. This effectively destroyed the campus, as the schools quickly moved to the Loveland Block

Loveland Building and Coors Building

The Loveland Block and the Coors Building are adjacent historic storefront buildings in downtown Golden, Colorado. The Loveland Block, named for pioneer William A.H. Loveland, once served as the territorial capitol building of Colorado...

 in downtown Golden, and after a short return by the School of Mines in 1879, it moved to its permanent campus in the city. The campus was fully acquired by the state government in 1880 and the remaining School of Mines building became the nucleus of the Colorado State Industrial School for Boys. The original Mines building was destroyed by fire in 1893.