Watch and share this slideshow about a famous figure in Methodist history. John Dyer was so beloved as an evangelist in the early days of the West in the U.S. that he earned the nickname Father Dyer and the church he started in Breckenridge, Colorado bears that name today. There are other tributes to his name including a mountain peak and what is now a ghost town, Dyersville. His image is preserved in stained glass windows and in the Capitol rotunda in Denver.
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1800s Methodist minister "Father John Lewis Dyer" is remembered in the Colorado Capitol among the founding fathers of the state.
This "snowshoe itinerant" was a circuit-rider on homemade skis.
Dyer faced blizzards and wild animals to reach remote mining towns.
He preached in saloons, in tents and on street corners.
Sometimes miners put gold dust in the offering plate. Most were too poor to give anything.
Dyer delivered U.S. mail to support his ministry.
Dyer is a Colorado legend in the Ski Hall of Fame.
The church he founded continues today, Father Dyer United Methodist Church in Breckenridge, Colorado.
