2015 May

Quillen’s Corner – This Land is My Land, This Land is Your Land

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by Martha Quillen The transfer of wealth from America’s middle classes to those who already have the most continues – with very little resistance. “Why Workers Won’t Unite,” an article by Kim Phillips-Fein in The Atlantic this April, explores why laborers haven’t come together to reverse this ominous trend – and also why old-fashioned economic …

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On the Ground – Down on the Ground with Water Again

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by George Sibley By the time you read this, something about the future of Central Colorado – this place where the waters of the West start – will be at least written down. I’m writing this a day after I sent off my part of a Gunnison Basin Water Plan out to 2050: an “appendix” …

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The Real Deal Music Review– Jim Remington with Emmy Baskin – First Person

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by Brian Rill Jim Remington with Emmy Baskin – First Person 2014 In business school, the first paradigm of prosperity is: include a limited number of primary participants who can consistently agree upon a shared vision and contribute directly. This standard is evident from the success of Jim Remington’s newest self-made CD, First Person. Power …

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The Caboose

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by Forrest Whitman Train Day is coming May 9, and at least 20 of us from Colorado Central territory will be on the Southwest Chief train that day. We’ll meet other Chief fans along the way and spend the night in Las Vegas, New Mexico. There will be partying on and off the train. We …

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Book Review – Responding

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Responding Beatrice Strawn and Sue Mills CreateSpace: 2015 ISBN-13: 978-1503384378 $18.50, 48pp. Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel Beatrice Strawn has been a consistent and sturdy contributor to Central Colorado’s art scene for close to three decades; and for 16 years, prior to retiring here, she crafted and taught in Denver. Here, in this book, 16 …

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Book Review – Hollywood’s Railroads, Volume Three: Narrow Gauge Country

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Hollywood’s Railroads, Volume Three: Narrow Gauge Country By Larry Jensen Cochetopa Press  72 pages ISBN 978-0-692-31351-0 Reviewed by Forrest Whitman Here’s a little gem of a railroad book that explains a lot about Colorado Central country. As recently as 1968, both of our narrow gauge railroads in southern Colorado were threatened with extinction. The D&RGW …

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Bringing the Stone Age into the 21st Century

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by Ericka Kastner Crestone’s Earth Knack Stone Age Living Skills founder Robin Blankenship says by the time she graduated from college, she’d spent half of her life in the outdoors, a journey that was set in motion when she was a young girl attending a 63-acre campus in the Northern Illinois woodlands from first through …

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News from the San Luis Valley

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By Gena Akers Less Water for Irrigation Farmers have less water to irrigate with this year. While Colorado has a head start on delivering water under the Rio Grande Compact to New Mexico and Texas, the irrigation ditches are low. Both the Rio Grande and Conejos stream-flow forecasts are below average, according to The Pueblo …

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Regional News Roundup

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Gardner Wants to Delay Sage- Grouse Listing Freshman Colorado Senator Cory Gardner has introduced an act to delay the endangered species designation of the Gunnison Sage-grouse. His act would allow states at least six more years to implement conservation and management plans to protect the grouse without the need for federal protection. Once numbering in …

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The First Draft Horses in the San Luis Valley

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by Jan MacKell Collins Most history buffs have heard of George McJunkin, the former slave from Texas who discovered the much heralded “Folsom Fossils” in New Mexico during the 1930s. There was another McJunkin family however, distant cousins to the Texas family who eventually gave George his freedom. This branch of the family made history …

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From the Editor

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by Mike Rosso About the Weather Inside, the calendar says April 25. Outside, the remnants of the most recent snowstorm have finally vanished, leaving a good dosage of moisture to help jump-start the local flora and fauna to do their spring thing. But the natural world seems in no big hurry to begin its annual …

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About the Cover Artist: Scott Engel

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Portland, Oregon was my original home until I left for San Francisco in 1971. Practicing at being an artist led me on a path of studying at the San Francisco Art Institute, where I received my BFA. While in San Francisco, I worked at Hansen Fuller Gallery, where I met and was influenced by various …

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Buy and Dry in Coaldale

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By Ron Sering

Leaving Bighorn Sheep Canyon and heading west toward Coaldale, the first thing you notice are the fields. In the spring, enormous center pivots distribute runoff from the Sangres, turning the fields green with alfalfa. These fields have been worked since homesteaders arrived in the Pleasant Valley in the 1800s. That could soon be changing.

Among the largest ranches is the 160-acre CB Ranch near Coaldale. Assembled from various smaller holdings by Kansas cattleman Clint Branch, after his passing the property was put on the block, along with the senior water rights. The property was eventually purchased by the city of Security. “It seemed like a good fit,” said Roy Heald, District Manager of the Security Water and Sanitation District. 

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The Maysville Schoolhouse

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By Ericka Kastner

Seven miles west of Poncha Springs, nestled in a valley along the banks of the South Arkansas River, sits one of the cutest little schoolhouses you’ll ever see. With its brightly painted cherry red exterior, the Maysville School is impossible to miss and definitely worth a stop on the way up into the high country for those traveling west on U.S. Hwy. 50, or for Gunnison folks heading east toward the Upper Arkansas Valley.

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On the ‘Full Tilt Boogie’ Book Tour

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By Hal Walter

March finally arrived in April, and the wind had been howling the entire afternoon as I left for an evening speaking engagement at the Greenhorn Valley Library in Colorado City. The Sangre de Cristo Range was barely an outline in the ghastly gray dust blowing over from the San Luis Valley, and an occasional gust tossed my car sideways.

The quickest route from my home near Westcliffe is the Greenhorn Highway through San Isabel and Rye. It’s a curvy and hilly, but scenic, drive with very little traffic. As I rounded one curve on this winding highway, I found a tree that the wind had dropped from the uphill side of the road. It had fallen perpendicular to the pavement and broken at the trunk. The impact from the tree breaking had literally tossed the fairly sizable treetop uphill quite a distance, leaving it angled across both lanes amid debris of bark and broken branches. I stopped the car and got out to inspect the scene and take a photo. Then I got back in and eased slowly past the tree trunk, continuing on my way and calling to notify the authorities when I arrived at the library.

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