Essay by Laura Mccall
Western Life – January 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
IN THE 1970s, Gunnison’s only franchise was A & W — an old and somewhat quaint chain that employed car-hops in the summer months. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Taco Bell did not exist. In 1987, a company named ALCO came to town and built their cinder block discount store, the site of the present-day Wal-Mart, over a pasture where the largest and most-magnificent bulls used to graze.