2013 October

My Mount Princeton

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By Richard R. Cuyler

Up close, Mount Princeton is an ugly pile of granite; from a distance, it is beautiful in all its changeability of weather and seasons.

At 71, should I have known better? Six of us, Princeton University alumni and friends, gathered for the annual climb up “our” eponymous mountain. Since it was mid-August, I dressed in my usual eastern gear: shorts, T-shirt and hiking boots, with a fleece pullover and a poncho for good measure. We met in a drizzle, so out came the poncho. I was chilly, but why break out the fleece when the climb would soon warm me up? Our late start didn’t concern me. I knew about the furious afternoon storms but thought they couldn’t happen on an overcast day, since heat wouldn’t build up, a condition I understood as necessary.

First the road, then the trailhead, then the short stretch of tundra before the boulders, interrupted occasionally by sections of rough trail. I could tell the air had become thinner, but the light rain had stopped. I was warm and content. Although I had to stop frequently to catch my breath, I was exhilarated. Sometimes I could hear water purling through the jumble far below my feet. Everything, including my knees, was right with the world.

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LIGHTS OUT? The Clock is Ticking for Small Rural Movie Theaters

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By Mike Rosso

Movie theaters have been around in the U.S. since the late 1800s with the invention of the Vitascope projector by Thomas Edison. During the Great Depression, millions of Americans took refuge from economic woes in local theaters. Movie houses were big business for much of the 20th century.

Then came television, allowing families to be visually entertained in their own homes; this put a small dent in theater attendance, but the cinemas were still bringing in big bucks. The video home system (VHS) presented the next challenge to the movie houses, but a delay in the release of the VHS tapes still allowed the theaters to sustain attendance numbers.

Next was the DVD and shorter release dates for new films. The advent of DVD dispensers, such as Redbox, and high-speed internet, which led to Netflix, along with the introduction of large, high-resolution flat-screen televisions made it even easier for folks to enjoy a cinematic experience in their own homes. All of these technologies took their toll on movie houses, especially in small rural areas, where profits are based on the number of seats sold.

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Down on the Ground in the Anthropocene

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By George Sibley

The Anthropocene: I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot, but nature and culture both kicked in recently with ugly news that both affirms and challenges the idea of an Anthropocene Epoch on planet earth.

To refresh your mind (or assault it if the concept is new to you), “Anthropocene” is a new name that scientists from a number of fields, including geology, are proposing for the current geological epoch, known to this point as the “Holocene Epoch.” Some scientists sees the Anthropocene Epoch starting only 200 years ago, when humans began the large-scale use of fossil fuels. Others see it going back the full 11,700 years of the Holocene, when the Big Ice of the Pleistocene Epoch receded – “went back for more rocks,” as New England farmers say – and humans began cultivating land.

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A St. Patrick’s Day Parade … in September

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By C.C. White

Sometimes a town just needs a good excuse to party. Leadville – the self-proclaimed “Parade Capital of the U.S.” – certainly had yet another one this past September. Being too cold in March to formally observe St. Patrick’s Day, each September, at the halfway mark, the citizens hold what they call a “Practice Parade.”

Like the traditional holiday, it features police car escorts, candy-throwing children, dyed green dogs, revelers sporting green hair and sparkly hats, Irish dancers (“Last year, they were Scottish,” grumbled my friend Cecilia Ogasawara, who took Irish dancing lessons and knows the difference), and of course, a dynamite Irish band. There’s a delightful difference with this event, however: often, Leadville tourists have no idea what’s going on. “Why are you dressed up?” one of them curiously asked our group of seven, which included Cecilia’s sister, Mary Carey. “Why is Harrison Avenue getting blocked off?”

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Colorado Forts – Historic Outposts on the Wild Frontier

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By Jolie Anderson Gallagher

Editor’s note: The following excerpt is the first chapter from a new book: Colorado Forts, published by The History Press, Charleston, SC, ISBN #978.1.60949.660.9.

Contested Borders (1806–1822)

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the fledgling United States hungered for new territory. To the west of the Mississippi lay uncharted and unpopulated terrain of striking contrasts: towering mountain ranges, expansive plains and verdant valleys. Yet that wide swath of land was alternately claimed by the British, Spanish and French. In a political topography defined by competing interests and contested borders, European nations stood in the way of America’s desire to extend its influence across the continent.

Americans eyed the Louisiana Territory, 828,000 square miles stretching from the port of New Orleans up through the Mississippi basin, to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Spain had claimed that land in 1800 but had agreed to transfer portions to France in a treaty. Their negotiations dragged on for years, and before the two nations could settle the details, an impatient Napoleon Bonaparte slapped a For Sale sign on the territory. Desperate for cash, Napoleon offered it to the United States for a bargain: a mere $15 million (three cents an acre). President Thomas Jefferson readily accepted Napoleon’s offer, effectively doubling the size of the country. In the process, he made an enemy of Spain.

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Moving Salida Sideways

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It’s the silly season in Salida.

Lines in the sand are being drawn, ammunition is being stockpiled and talking points are being honed.

We have three council seats as well as mayor’s seat up for grabs this November in Salida, and the philosophies of the candidates couldn’t be more stark.

On one side we have a group declaring “It’s time for us to take Salida back!” Which begs the question: back to when? The 1980s and early 90s? When half the businesses downtown were boarded up? Or the 1970s, where for sale signs stood in front of a quarter of the homes in town and a house could be had for five figures? (Actually, that one doesn’t sound so bad.)

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Light on the Headstones

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By Hal Walter
As I was pulling away from the feed store, I noticed the early evening light on the headstones of the small cemetery on the hillside about a mile away. I’ve seen so many great photos of cemeteries in the Southwest, and had tried some photography in this graveyard a couple of times with no luck. But this evening the light and the clouds looked interesting, and I thought I’d drive up there and take a look around.

Harrison and I got out of the car and stepped across the cattle guard and into the fenced-in area. There was a warm breeze, and the little flags on the veterans’ graves all fluttered in unison. It seems there’s always a breeze at this cemetery. But it’s one of the most peaceful places I know. Harrison began running around looking at the headstones, reading the names, some of them of well-known Wet Mountain Valley families.

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A St. Patrick’s Day Parade … in September

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By C. C. White

Sometimes a town just needs a good excuse to party. Leadville – the self-proclaimed “Parade Capital of the U.S.” – certainly had yet another one this past September. Being too cold in March to formally observe St. Patrick’s Day, each September, at the halfway mark, the citizens hold what they call a “Practice Parade.”

Like the traditional holiday, it features police car escorts, candy-throwing children, dyed green dogs, revelers sporting green hair and sparkly hats, Irish dancers (“Last year, they were Scottish,” grumbled my friend Cecilia Ogasawara, who took Irish dancing lessons and knows the difference), and of course, a dynamite Irish band. There’s a delightful difference with this event, however: often, Leadville tourists have no idea what’s going on. “Why are you dressed up?” one of them curiously asked our group of seven, which included Cecilia’s sister, Mary Carey. “Why is Harrison Avenue getting blocked off?”

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A Tale of Two Cities Served by One Council

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By Martha Quillen

I’m an American, a Coloradan, a Salidan, and a resident of Chaffee County. I’m also a resident of a Colorado congressional district, a Salida city precinct, a hospital district and the R-32-J School District. As is true of most Americans, I am a citizen in a host of participatory democracies, which one would presume must share some common goals.

But sometimes in the course of human events the citizens just can’t seem to agree upon their goals. This has been especially noticeable in Salida of late as contradictory messages have sprouted in the pouring rain. “Take Our City Back, Save Salida,” a row of placards advises, countered by a bevy of “Keep Salida Moving Forward” missives.

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Sustainability, Yet Another Fluid Curiosity

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By John Mattingly
Until recently, sustainability has been a foreign concept in the American West. Those who initially settled the West encountered a vast resource where everything was there for the taking: a settler could receive allodial title to land by homesteading, ranchers could freely graze the unfenced plains, and miners could dig a hole and patent a claim. Though this is a simplification, it’s fair to suggest that until the early 1970s when the environmental movement got some political traction, the attitude in the American West toward resources was, to put it nicely, driven by the twin principals of private control and maximum utilization.

Settlers endured some hardship and stresses in homesteading and civilizing the West. Few today would have the right stuff to do it. And, drawing loosely on John Locke’s principal that ownership of property was morally tied to the human being who worked that property, settlers of the American West, and their descendants, have successfully promoted rugged individualism, private stewardship, and a hard work ethic to justify, and to some extent glorify, their successes.

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A Railroad That Missed the Flood

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By Forrest Whitman

When Gov. Hickenlooper visited Colorado Central county in Salida this summer, he took time out to view the old D. & R. G. W. Railroad main line. The last time a scheduled freight rolled by there was in 1997, but surprisingly we heard a horn blast. There it was, no mistaking, the short, long and two shorts of a train approaching the grade crossing in Salida. It turned out to be a maintenance-of-way consist. The crew dedicated some hours to removing any large plants growing up between the ties and moving some rocks off the line. The Union Pacific (UP) was complying with their obligation to keep the tracks open, even though they are officially “out of service.” As we looked over the much neglected tracks, I reminded the governor of a bit of history.

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Dispatch from the Edge

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By Peter Anderson

The vultures are leaving their roost over by the creek. They follow the Rio Grande south until the climate suits them. The sandhill cranes are flying in from the north, sometimes barely visible in the high skies as they circle, gather themselves and get their bearings; sometimes their weird cackling call precedes them as they emerge from low-slung autumn clouds. Elk are bugling for mates, bears are scavenging for extra calories before the big sleep, and coyotes are on the prowl for unsuspecting house pets. Here at the end of the road, summer drifters who came to town with little more than a sleeping bag are dreaming of sunshine and saguaros or maybe some seaside town in southern California, hoping to set aside some cash for the road. This is a restless time.

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The Natural World

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By Tina Mitchell

Every year, I greet autumn with mixed feelings. The crisp days and cool nights seem to sing after the hot days and much-warmer-than-I’d-like nights of late summer. But these wondrous days get noticeably shorter as each passes. Now that the exhausting tasks of breeding season have ended, the birds have gone silent, and many species have headed out for their wintering grounds. But winter species start to reappear, including the high-flying, raucous flocks of Sandhill Cranes heading over the Sangres to stopover spots in the San Luis Valley. Snow provides an occasional ephemeral dusting on the peaks, offering a lovely contrast to the evergreens below treeline. But I also keep a sharp eye on the weather forecasts, dreading the first meaningful snowfall down here. Actually, snow arrives with its own love/hate relationship for me – but that’s a topic for another time.

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Book Review

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 Tributary

By Barbara K. Richardson
Torrey House Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-937226-04-6
$15.95, 348pp.

Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel

This second novel by Barbara K. Richardson was finalist for this year’s Willa Literary Award in Historical Fiction. It begins in 1859, when a Mormon Brother finds six-year-old Clair Martin, orphaned and abandoned in Honeyville, Utah, and brings her with him to Brigham City. There the Mormon Elders find a place for her, assisting an aging widow. From birth, Clair’s face has borne a distinguishing mark, “the purple-red stain that covers my left cheek and flutes down my neck like I’ve been scalded.”

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Poncha Springs Fire Station

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The Poncha Springs Fire Station, located at the intersection of U.S. Hwy. 50 and U.S. Hwy. 285, is the fourth property featured from the Chaffee County Historic Resources Survey. As stated by Virginia McConnell Simmons in The Upper Arkansas, A Mountain River Valley, Poncha Pass was part of a hub of trails leading in and out of the southern end of the San Luis Valley. The pass, at an altitude of 8,945 feet, is one of the lowest in the state. In 1779, Comanches retreated over Poncha Pass with stolen horses while being pursued by 600 Spanish dragoons. Arizona Governor Juan Bautista de Anza led the soldiers in a chase ending just south of Pueblo, where the Comnache leader, Cuerno Verde, and other high-ranking tribe members were killed. The hot springs area just a mile from the present town was a favorite campsite for the Ute tribe.

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News from the San Luis Valley

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By Patty LaTaille

Saguache County Protests Property Reassessment

The reassessment of properties by the Saguache County Assessor’s office, under the direction of the Department of Local Affairs, Division of Property Taxation, has been protested by a large number of Crestone, Baca and Villa Grove residents. State Sen. Larry Crowder, Rep. Ed Vigil and representatives of the State Division of Taxation attended a meeting in late July to address the issues.

Many residents, especially in the town of Crestone, felt that the new values placed on their properties are excessive and not representative of the true market value. Several protested that the town economy and wages are not strong enough to allow residents to pay the taxes that would result from the new assessments.

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Regional News

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Region Spared Flooding

Despite the ravaging floods in Colorado’s Front Range foothills, the central Colorado region was spared the devastation but did receive large amounts of precipitation.

As of Sept. 26, Salida received three inches of rain for the month, compared to an average of 0.89 inches. In Gunnison, 2.41 inches had fallen as of Sept. 26, compared to a two-decade average of 1.3 inches.

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