MY CAREER HAS BEEN FOR THE TREES. I earned a university degree in forestry and worked for five years as a wildland firefighter. My education and my work as a firefighter instilled in me “The Prescription” for both how to manage forests and how to stop wildfires. Nineteen years ago, with entrepreneurial enthusiasm and a …
THE STRESSES OF TODAY’S HOUSING MARKET are present nationwide, though their seeming stranglehold has become even more apparent in the Upper Ark Valley through the obvious labor crisis numerous industries are experiencing. While many still contemplate how to handle real estate’s skyrocketing prices concurrent with wage battles and rising inflation, Fading West Development is paving …
I’M A PRETTY GOOD RECYCLER. I don’t mind separating the materials and making periodic treks to the public recycle center, where I put recyclables in separate containers for collection. It makes me feel good. And it’s free. Or was free. Effective April 2021, Chaffee County no longer has public drop-off sites for recycling. Our only …
IT WAS A BLUEBIRD-SKY SUNDAY MORNING in Buena Vista as I squinted against the intense sun, following the outstretched arm of Stephanie McDonald, the USA Pickleball district ambassador for southern Colorado. Her gesture encompassed the center of the newly poured pickleball courts, as she described where eventually there will be bleachers for fans to observe …
WALKING UP TO THE FRONT DOOR of the Starpoint-staffed home in Salida, I immediately reflect on my own life with the disabled population. My dad has managed a group home for disabled adults since I was 7 years old. Living in Salida I’ve savored my small, always positive, interactions with Starpoint consumers. So, I jumped …
By Jennifer Swacina When I first heard about Nestlé mining water— right here in Chaffee County—I wished I had been here in 2009 to have joined those who rallied against it. Be careful what you wish for! In late 2019, I happened to read an article covering a routine county commissioner’s meeting with discussion that …
By Mike Rosso Colorado has seen consistent population growth since its inception in 1876, whether is was fur trapping, gold and silver mining, or world-class skiing. The state has seen an estimated 14.5% increase in population in the past decade, affecting both cities and rural areas as well. Between 2017 and 2018 the population of …
By Suzy Kelly What can you say about Joe Cogan? Everything. Joe left us on Saturday November 2, 2020 and there is a big hole in the hearts of his family and many friends. I was behind Joe at the Buena Vista schools as he graduated in 1952 and I was in grade school. When …
By Becki Rupp It was late March when Brian Beaulieu, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Chaffee County, and his board realized that they may not be able to hold their traditional Casino Night fundraiser in Salida in early May. They had five weeks to figure out how to shift gears. Cancelling …
By Duane Vandenbusche Dave Wood was tired. In 1877, the great freighter of Western Colorado and his 50-man crew had built the first rough road into Taylor Park and Gunnison County, one year after Colorado became a state. Trails existed from the Arkansas River on the Eastern Slope to Taylor Park on the Western Slope, but this was the first …
To the Editor, Chaffee County commissioners are considering renewing Nestlé Waters permit to extract up to 65 million gallons of water per year for another ten years. Up to 25 trucks per day are permitted to haul water 130 miles to Denver, where the water is packaged in single-use plastic bottles and sold under the …
By Daniel Smith Large-scale growth has arrived in Chaffee County; from Poncha Springs to Buena Vista to Salida; construction, houses and development all reflect that growth. The growth trend recently was focused on a proposed large development north of Salida at the historic Centerville ranch; a sprawling 950-acre parcel just off U.S. Hwy. 285, across …
By Ryan Kempfer History Mount Shavano is the southernmost fourteener in the magnificent Sawatch Range of Central Colorado. The Range is home to 15 of the 58 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. The name Sawatch comes from the native Ute tribe meaning “water of the blue earth.” The story of the Angel of Shavano comes from …
Chaffee County’s past comes alive at a unique historic spot between Salida and Poncha Springs, just off U.S. Hwy. 50. The Hutchinson Homestead and Learning Center is a place where it’s easy to imagine what life was like in the early settlement days in the Upper Arkansas Valley. The Hutchinson family settled in the region …
By Mike Rosso Last month’s issue contained an article about the National Christmas Tree, which was felled near Silver Creek in Chaffee County in 1962, and shipped to Washington D.C. to be displayed before thousands at a lighting ceremony outside the White House. Since publishing that article, more was learned about the tree and the …
Whether a patchwork of heirloom fabrics or a collage of scrap pieces stitched together in an act of caring, a quilt carries associations and speaks of love and comfort. For members of Chaffee County Quilts of Valor (CCQofV), a quilt is a handmade offering of gratitude presented to veterans in acknowledgement of their service. “We …
By Linda Gibas Browns Canyon National Monument is a unique and rugged area which is also Colorado’s newest monument. Its journey to become a monument began when it was determined by Congress that certain Bureau of Land Managment (BLM) lands had wilderness characteristics. After studying and performing inventories, the BLM concluded in 1980 that 6,614 …
By Mike Rosso
I recently returned home from celebrating my Mom’s 91st birthday (Dad is 96). Most of my family, me being the exception, have settled in Sonoma County, California. It’s a truly stunning countryside there. Rolling hills of grass and stately oaks. Miles and miles of vineyards stretching above and beyond the horizon.
By Jan Wondra
Residents of Central Colorado who love where they live likely share a common goal; to grow old in a place they love. Central to that goal are support services to retain quality of life. Agencies such as Upper Arkansas Area Agency on Aging (UAAAA), senior programs created by Chaffee County Public Health and other non-profit organizations such as A Little Help and Sage Generation, are in place to support efforts to remain active and living where we want, as long as possible.
The influx of active seniors into the central Rocky Mountain counties, called a “silver tsunami,” has become a major economic driver. After a 2016 Community Health Assessment, Chaffee County created a five year (2017-2021) health plan with an entire segment focused on seniors.
“One in five Chaffee County residents is 65 or older, and by 2020 it will be one in four residents,” said Public Health Director Andrea Carlstrom. “We’re trying to position the county – the lead county in a four-county health coalition – for the future. We have Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center here, but we have an expanding need for senior support.”
In 2017, Chaffee County Public Health created Sassy Seniors, a free service led by public health nurse Sandra Morgan. Appointments can be made by calling 719-530-2563.
“It’s a free assessment program; we assess their home’s safety features, assess their health, offer immunizations, recommend home helpers for things they can no longer do, give them a tool kit for thriving at home,” said Carlstrom.
Carlstrom says plugging seniors into a senior network is important.
By Jan Wondra
The fallout from Chaffee County inserting itself into a neighbor conflict isn’t just a property owner who found herself homeless for Christmas, although that is exactly what happened. At its worst, this may be an example of a government over-reaching its authority. At the least, it is a county Grinch, which first stole Christmas, and continues its attempt to remove most of Alison Brown’s American foxhounds from her 80-acre rural property located at 11600 Antelope Road.
By Jan Wondra
Talk with Central Colorado towns, cities or counties these days and you hear the same concern: housing stock – the lynch pin of a community’s social structure – is not keeping up with demand. While the situation is true across the entire state, rural areas are less able to deal with the effects of state inbound migration, rising housing costs and non-existent supply.
By Maggie Frasure
This year marks the 19th Annual Monarch Crest Crank. Taking place on Sunday, September 17, this annual fundraising bike ride wraps up Salida Bike Fest and benefits the Alliance Against Domestic Abuse (AADA).
By Maisie Ramsay Consider the goldfinch. Spinus tristis flits about the countryside, its vibrant plumage imbued with arnica-blossom yellow. This wind-borne drop of gold can be found here in Chaffee County, fluttering from rural fence posts with the whimsy of a mountain breeze. The finch makes lavish use of thistle, a plant whose prickly reputation …
By Virginia McConnell Simmons
With Mount Princeton and Mount Antero providing a serene backdrop, Gas Creek and Chalk Creek thread a valley lying north of Centerville, where U.S. Hwy. 285 drops down, passing under a water diversion pipe. This valley extends north to Cache Creek, which flows beneath the highway south of Nathrop. Here began local discord that, encompassing the nearby area, became known as the Lake County War.
When the following events took place, Gas Creek was part of Lake County, extending from the Continental Divide on the north and west, the Mosquito Range on the east, and Poncha Pass on the south. Leadville’s silver mines were not yet booming. But soon after the Pikes Peak gold rush and the Civil War, ranchers and farmers had started to take up land at Gas Creek, and irrigation ditches were being dug, some with affirmed legal rights and some without. Although a few of these early settlers had arrived as prospectors, they now were settling down with plows and cattle, returning to activities they had known “back home” in the Midwest and East.
It was a small world of early comers which the Gibbs family and others joined before long. Elijah Gibbs’ cabin was at Gas Creek, and his father had a place nearby. Elijah’s wife was the daughter of a Methodist preacher called Gilliland down at Brown’s Creek, a short distance south of Centerville, and another of Gilliland’s daughters was married to Justice of the Peace A.B. Cowan. Gilliland was an acquaintance of the well-known Methodist circuit rider, Rev. John L. Dyer, whose son Dyer taught school at Brown’s Creek. After a while, though, Elijah had moved, but only as far north as Granite, where he served as Probate Judge while also prospecting at Iowa Gulch near today’s Leadville.
By Maisie Ramsay
The entire summit of Mount Shavano, in the Sawatch Range, is located on private property, but not of the “trespassers will be shot” variety.
There are no fences. There are no signs. Save for a cairn and a couple of weather-beaten survey posts, there’s nothing to indicate that the entire summit block is composed of private mining claims – except, perhaps, the poor condition of the trail.
Private, high-elevation mining claims have precluded the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) from restoring the path to Shavano’s summit, leaving the route to degrade steadily with each passing year.
The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) has come up with a novel solution to this problem: buy the mining claims and give them to the Forest Service.
“Shavano was a high priority for the agency, but was stuck behind the private land inholdings,” said Lloyd Athearn, executive director for the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. “I put together a proposal on Shavano to investigate who owns the lands and acquire them, whatever was necessary to build the trail.”
By Ron Sering
The journal Science reports that fossil records in northern New Mexico show evidence of wildfires as far back as 200 million years. It’s part of the deal with living in the mountains, and an important part of its history.
By Nancy Walters
In September 2006, my husband Ken and I signed papers to purchase a lot in the Buffalo Hills subdivision of Chaffee County, Colorado. At the time, I was chafing at the local pronunciation of the county name, with a long ?. My family always pronounced the surname of my maternal grandfather, Arthur Chaffee, with a short vowel æ. That’s the phonics rule, right? A vowel before two consonants is pronounced as a soft vowel. I asked Gordon Sloat, our realtor, about this, and he assured me that locals always pronounce “Chaffee” with a long ?. Over time I adapted to local custom, not wanting to be heard as an outsider.
By Daniel Smith
It’s the amphibian of your youth.
Brown, squat, lumpy with “warts” – the kind your mother warned you about. The Boreal Toad (Anaxyrus Boreas) is the quintessential toad in appearance.
The little four-inch toad is the focus of an important preservation campaign in Chaffee County, which has one of the few isolated areas in the world where it may have a chance to hold its own. But now the extinction threat is real, even here.
The chytrid fungus, a disease thought to have originated in Africa, is an extinction threat. Globally, amphibian numbers have declined alarmingly, accelerating since the end of the last century.
The Boreal Toad was very common in high, wet areas of the Colorado mountains, but by 1989, surveys found an 83 percent population loss from breeding areas.
Beginning in 1994, population surveys were done in some of the habitat where they were quickly disappearing, and a multi-agency rescue effort started not long after. The Boreal Toad is now listed as endangered in Colorado and New Mexico and as a protected species in Wyoming. A decision on its listing as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is pending in 2017.
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.
by John Mattingly After my last month’s column that took a somewhat sanguine look at the cow-calf end of the beef business, suggesting that cow-calf ranchers are basically keeping large pets, I trust readers will have sold the 100 virtual cows I gifted them for exactly what they paid for them. Not because they didn’t …
by Forrest Whitman Salida’s Magic Caboose Saturday, June 21 was dedication day for Denver and Rio Grande Railroad caboose 0576. It’s a magic caboose chock full of symbolism. It would take an author as sensitive as, say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez to write up all of that. A caboose speaks to the kid in us all. …
by Bill Hatcher “In Colorado, the outdoors is what’s for dinner!” That’s Sherry Ellms, Professor of Environmental Studies at Naropa University in Boulder. I had asked her what motorized recreation says about American Culture. And while playful, her dining metaphor belies our tendency to “consume” nature. In 1991, 11,700 OHVs (off-highway vehicles, such as dirt …
At a time when multinational corporations fund fake grassroots organizations to promote dubious causes, Central Colorado Foodshed Alliance (CCFA) offers a refreshing example of a true grassroots effort to improve the local food economy in central Colorado. David Ward, president and founding board member of CCFA, said he and wife Suzanne, also a founding board …
By Fay Golson
Rodeos are a window into the past and an indelible part of our American culture. Evidance of this can still be found at the Buena Vista Rodeo Grounds, located on 27.2 acres, 1.8 miles southwest of town.
As is well known, the rodeo was not developed as a sporting event, but arose from the performance of utilitarian tasks. These tasks were an integral part of cattle-ranching in areas of Spanish influence in the west, where skills learned from the vaqueros set the stage for an enduring sport.
By Fay Golson for The Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board
The St. Julien Livery in downtown Buena Vista is the eighth property featured from the Chaffee County Historic Resources Survey. The 0.39-acre property is located at the southwest corner of Chestnut Street and Railroad Avenue. The building not only served as a livery but also, a few years after opening, as an ice and coal store. During their time, livery stables were vital to towns throughout America.
By Fay Golson for The Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board
This Granite stage stop and Livery Stable is the fifth property featured from the Chaffee County Historic Resources Survey completed this summer. Granite was spawned by the stampede of prospectors struck by gold fever. The initial gold discovery in 1860 by G.A. Kelley along the Arkansas River – about four miles south of the present day town of Granite – was on a gravel bar later to take the name Kelley’s Bar. Just to the north, Cache Creek became an even more profitable site. Virginia McConnell Simmons in The Upper Arkansas, A Mountain River Valley states it precisely: “Granite’s role in the life of this area went back to 1860, when the entire section along the Arkansas from Kelley’s Bar on the south to Cache Creek on the north was lined with prospectors’ tents. But Granite was simply a suburb of the placer camps, particularly of Cache Creek.”
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.
Chaffee County Historic Resources Survey Series
By Fay Golson for The Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board
To conclude the account of the Love Ranch, the third property in the Chaffee County Historic Resource Survey and featured in last month’s Colorado Central, Jo Love’s importance to the ranch will be disclosed. Although their marriage was brief, her dedication to her husband, Mark Love, was a significant influence on her life.
Being registered as a Colorado State Guide, Mark guided hunters and fishermen through the mountains. Theodore Roosevelt and Zane Grey were reportedly just a few of his notable clients. In a photograph supplied by Antony Mayo, Mark is shown seated with Buffalo Bill Cody and an unidentified man. The 1910 census reveals Mark’s place of residency as Glenwood Springs and his occupation as a tourist guide. A year after their marriage the Loves acquired the ranch and converted it into a cabin camp for summer vacationers. The camp consisted of three guest cabins and the main house.
By Fay Golson for The Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board
Driving along the Collegiate Peaks Scenic and Historic Byway (Salida to Poncha Springs and Buena Vista to Granite), buildings and structures come into view that have many stories to tell. Some of these buildings and structures are not visible from the Byway but instead are nestled within the towns.
In 2010, on behalf of the Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board (CCHAAB), the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) received a Colorado State Historic Fund Grant (SHF) to have 65 properties in Chaffee County included in a Historic Resources Survey. GARNA selected Tom and Laurie Simmons of Front Range Research Associates (FRRA) to perform this work. After two years of work by volunteers, Colorado Mountain College students, the CCHAAB and the FRRA, the project is now complete. Documents will soon be available to the public at the Salida Regional Library and the Buena Vista Public Library.
Colorado has a long history of commercial beer breweries. The Coors Brewing Company, first established in 1873 by German immigrants Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler in Golden, is still in operation and is the largest single beer-brewing facility in the world. Other large Colorado breweries, such as the Walter’s Brewing Company and the P.H. Zang Brewing Company, have long since disappeared, leaving only historic mementos to indicate their existence. Back in the boom days of mining and railroads, it wasn’t unusual for even the smallest town to have at least one commercial brewery. At one time, Leadville boasted at least eleven breweries. Villa Grove, Bonanza, Silver Cliff, Westcliffe, Rosita, even Granite, all had small breweries back in the day, but the mining busts, plus the onset of statewide prohibition in 1915, spelled doom for these small brewing operations.
By Don Love
The first miners and ranchers in Colorado’s mountain country depended on the rough roads that connected them to each other and to the world beyond. Popular interpretations of western history hold that railroads, which came to the mountain country in the 1880s, gave the region an economic boost that wagon roads had failed to completely exploit.
But the mountain West never could be confined to the routes and schedules that made the rails such a progressive force in much of Gilded Age America. The mountain west traveled a more independent road, and even before the advent of the automobile, a Chaffee County rancher and politician paved the way to a modern highway system. This month, we recognize the accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson Ehrhart, who, 100 years ago, helped establish the agency we know today as the Colorado Department of Transportation.
By Ron Sering
Rights to irrigate the area known today as Hill Ranch predate Chaffee County by more than a decade. Decreed in 1868, the rights permitted diversion of water for agriculture and ranching. And so it remained for more than a century, even after sale of the rights by the Hill family to Western Water Rights Limited Liability Partnership in 1986.
That all changed with the subsequent sale of the rights to the Pueblo West Metropolitan District (PWMD) in 2008. The PWMD, home to nearly 30,000 thirsty people, needed the rights to fuel a growth rate that remains among the fastest in the state. The rights are significant, totaling nearly 1,900 acre feet of water. An acre foot totals nearly 326,000 gallons. Under the decree, the rights would convert from agricultural to municipal. Included in the terms was the cessation of irrigation activities. The land would be dried up and restored to its pre-irrigation state.
by Alan Robinson- Chaffee County Heritage Area Advisory Board member
Concern for preserving “heritage resources” (the collective natural, cultural, historic and scenic features which define an area’s sense of place) in Chaffee County took a front seat in 2004 when its county commissioners ambitiously declared the whole county a heritage area. They also appointed an 11-member Advisory Board representing public land managers, historical societies, towns, ranchers, local nature associations and the general public, and charged us not only with identifying heritage, but with educating our fellow citizens about its value in social, ecological and economic terms, and with planning how heritage can be managed to preserve and perpetuate those values. Board members volunteer their services but, recognizing future administrative and technical services, the commissioners also appointed non-profit Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA, www.garna.org) and its director as the board’s executive arm.
photos and story by Mike Rosso
A prominent Pueblo-based architect with multiple buildings listed on the National Historic Register is responsible for the “Art Deco” style typified in the original Chaffee County Courthouse in Salida.
Walter DeMordaunt, who practiced architecture in Pueblo, Colorado from 1920 to 1962, was hired to design the courthouse in 1929 after a controversial 1928 election was held that moved the county seat from Buena Vista to Salida. But the controversy did not end there. Disputes over the use of contractors and local labor overshadowed the construction. Over DeMordaunt’s objections, county officials decided to brick over the stained glass windows he designed for the records vaults citing security issues, according to the book, Trails of the Columbine. “Private citizens” supposedly took matters into their own hands and removed the offending brickwork but it was later reinstalled where it remains to this day. The courthouse officially opened in its new Salida home in January of 1932.
by Mike Rosso
It was a chance visit to an Englewood, Colorado dog park that ultimately led to the creation of Chaffee County’s first open space for dogs, Loyal Duke’s Dog Park.
The dog park, which opened its gates on November 29, 2009, is the brainchild of Salida resident Laura Pintaine, who, along with her husband and family, first stumbled upon the dog park in Englewood sometime in 2005 and were thrilled to see the interaction that went on between dogs and owners.