Brief by Central Staff
Colorado Central – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
With this edition, we must bid farewell to a long-time feature, at least in its present form: the On Mountain Time cartoon by Clint Driscoll. He and his wife, Lin, are moving from Buena Vista to Grand Junction, and Clint told us he didn’t think he’d be able to maintain its Continental Divide relevance from the far Western Slope.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Article by Clint Driscoll
Agriculture – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
DECEMBER 23, 2003 was not a day U.S. cattle producers will remember fondly. On that date the USDA announced a dairy cow in Washington state had been found to have Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease. BSE is a fatal wasting disease affecting the brain and central nervous system in cattle. It destroyed the British cattle herd beginning in the mid-eighties and peaked in 1993 when 1000 cases a week were reported. There is no cure.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – March 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – February 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Sidebar by Clint Driscoll
Transportation – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
1. The old Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad depot, shown during prepartions for its move last spring, is not the only piece of railroading history hidden away in Buena Vista. Other structures related to the Midland, D&RG, and the DSP&P still exist today, although their uses, and in soem cases their forms, have changed.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Transportation – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
“The point is, people like you and me are just dilettantes, layabouts if you like, these people really care!”
— Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
THERE IS NO MORE AVID a hobbyist than a railroad buff. In fact, railroad workers refer to them as “foamers” because they tend to foam at the mouth whenever they see a locomotive or discuss their favorite topic. A special group of foamers (a term most buffs take pride in), the Denver, South Park and Pacific Historical Society, met for their fifth annual convention in Leadville this past Labor Day weekend. They came from as far away as America’s east and west coasts and even England’s East Anglia to talk about and retrace a section of their favorite railroad.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – December 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written by Clint Driscoll and illustrated by Judie Moorhead
Mountain Life – September 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Article by Clint Driscoll
Historic preservation – July 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE POTENTIAL for destruction of historically important districts and structures exists all over Central Colorado, and emotions run deep when a proposed or real action threatens such buildings or areas. As Stella Hosmer Bailey wrote in her 1985 history, The Charisma of Chalk Creek:
Brief by Clint Driscoll
Railroad history – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
It is still true that no good deed goes unpunished. The initial plans for moving the 1880 Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad depot in Buena Vista have derailed.
Originally the depot — which served as a private residence until October, 2002 when a fire damaged it — was supposed to be moved to a space on the right-of-way of the Union Pacific tracks which run through town.
Brief by Clint Driscoll
Railroad history – May 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
A part of the Denver, South Park & Pacific (DSP&P) narrow gauge railroad is rising phoenix-like from the ashes in Buena Vista. On October 18, 2002 at about 4:00 a.m. a fire occurred in the owner’s residence at the Woodland Brook Cabins, a long-established tourist resort in town. The fire began and was pretty much contained in the laundry room and the adjoining kitchen. The rest of the house was structurally intact, but heat and smoke destroyed or damaged a lot of the contents. Homeowner Riian Van Niekerk escaped unhurt; his wife Marjorie was out of town at the time.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Local artist – February 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to walk past a Fay Golson work without stopping to look. Whether the piece is a highly textured, colorful painting of humans at work, or a photograph of an abandoned shack in a blizzard, or a photogram featuring the demon form of Kali among everyday objects, the work requires examination and a reaction. That phenomenon has established the reputation of this Chaffee County artist as a painter, maker of mixed-media pieces, and a very creative photographer.
Review by Clint Driscoll
Mountain Life – September 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Fool’s Gold: Lives, Loves and Misadventures in the Four Corners Country
by Rob Schultheis
Published in 2000 by the Lyons Press
ISBN: 1-58574-136-1
Letter from Clint Driscoll
Local Politics – April 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Martha,
I enjoyed your piece on partisanship, and at the risk of being run out of the county I would like to posit a theory, strictly on the academic level, that you did not touch on in your letter. My thesis is this: We are seeing in Chaffee County not so much an increase in ideological partisanship as a shift in the basic power structure. Essentially the political battles up here, despite what some Republicans claim about party-switching Democrats, have pitted Republicans against Republicans. Face it, up here Democrats (like me) are rare as Hump
Article by Clint Driscoll
Local Artist – April 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
TO OBSERVE A WORK by Judé Silva is to get lost in the intricacies of the piece and in the reveries it invokes. A stole made of intricately twined red willow and aspen hangs from a horizontal pole — inviting comparison to a Japanese silk kimono. A natural fiber, hand-knotted net gently supports a spray of red willow. Does the artist hope to preserve natural things or to elicit the gentle remembrance of a moment in time?
Brief by Clint Driscoll
Development – April 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Beginning on May 25, Chaffee County will be serenaded by cowboys singing under the stars at the foot of Mount Princeton. That prediction comes from Michael Martin Murphey, known by older listeners as the Cosmic Cowboy and by many Coloradans as the host of Westfest.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Local artist – January 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE AVERAGE PERSON would not assume a man driving an older model Ford pickup with a Trout Unlimited decal and a prominently displayed “No Whining” bumper sticker would have the soul of an artist; but assumptions are often wrong. Over the past decade Robert “Bob” Gray has established his reputation as the finest creator of turned wood objects d’art in the region. He has spent hours bouncing over back roads in his Ford searching for windfall or beaver-cut aspen trees which provide the raw material for his work.
Review by Clint Driscoll
Western Writing – October 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Living in the Runaway West: Partisan Views from Writers on the Range
Compiled by the editors of High Country News
ISBN 1-55591-048-3
Review by Clint Driscoll
Mining Novel – May 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mine Work
by Jim Davidson
Published in 1999
by Utah State University Press
ISBN 0-87421-275-8
Review by Clint Driscoll
Western America – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
An Empire Wilderness: Travels into America’s Future
by Robert D. Kaplan
ISBN: 0-679-45190-0
Letter by Clint Driscoll
Growth – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Boomtown Blues is another good book about our changes
Dear Ed,
Thanks for the review of Peter Decker’s Old Fences, New Neighbors. The book is a bit pricey, even with First Street’s discount, but worth it for the quotes which can be pulled from it. You are quite right, Decker has a sharp eye and a sympathetic view of the close-knit society which existed around Ridgway before the big land rush in the ’80s and ’90s destroyed it. The same situation exists throughout the state and his observations can apply as much to Custer or Chaffee County as to Ouray County.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Local Artists – October 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHEN DAN ROHN and his wife, Mary, settled in Salida in 1996, they may have been new residents, but they were familiar with the area. Every August for forty years they camped and fished in Central Colorado: learning the back roads, and finding perfect camp spots, quiet fishing holes and hidden hot springs.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Roadside Attractions – August 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
NINETY YEARS after the Denver, South Park & Pacific narrow-gauge railroad stopped chugging over Trout Creek Pass, it is still possible to reserve a berth in a Victorian Pullman sleeping car or a drover’s caboose and enjoy the hospitality offered in a typical 1880s-era depot. Irene and Juel Kjeldsen own and operate the Trout City Inn Berth and Breakfast on the west side of Trout Creek Pass about six miles east of Buena Vista on U.S. 285/24. There, local railroad history lives.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Education – September 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Darren Patterson Christian Academy has been part of Buena Vista’s education scene since 1982. The beginning of the fifteenth school-year this September is a landmark for the academy since classes will be held in a new schoolhouse. Built almost entirely with volunteer labor, the building — like DPCA itself — has been a labor of love for parents, faculty and members of Buena Vista’s First Baptist Church.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Law Enforcement – June 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
One reason for the increasing numbers of full-time people on police payrolls throughout Colorado is recent state law which has pretty well eliminated volunteers, reservists, and part-timers.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Local Artists – May 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
Walking into Conrad Nelson’s Buena Vista studio is like walking into a workshop whose owner has not quite decided what business to go into. Chainfalls, chop saws and mechanic’s tool chests sit next to etching presses, drawing tables, computers, and clotheslines of drying prints.
Letter from Clint Driscoll
Idealism – February 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editor:
Although at first reading it was easy to sympathize with Ken Wright’s complaint in his modest proposal in your January issue, further consideration leads me to believe Mr. Wright has become the victim of one of the West’s many illusions, i.e. an idyllic, rural lifestyle can be led forever in the Rocky Mountains.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Arkansas River Forum – July 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Attending the second annual Upper Arkansas Watershed Forum in Cañon City April 19 and 20 felt like riding a raft down the river during spring run-off. There were as many differing opinions and expectations among the participants as there are rocks and whirlpools in the Numbers. If you weren’t paying attention while making small talk during breaks and meals, you would find yourself floundering between a wake of property-rights proponents and an eddy of no-growth wilderness advocates.
Article by Clint Driscoll & Diane Alexander
Animals – March 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
For the past six years, Diane Godynick-Clements has rescued cats in Buena Vista. At last count, she had sixteen in her house, sixteen cats that she was trying to place in good homes. People know about Diane, which explains why cats get dumped off at her house without any notes, food, or support money. Once, after a Humane Society fundraiser, she came home to find a frightened dog tied to her fencepost.
Essay by Clint Driscoll
Rural Life – February 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
When I first moved to Buena Vista, one of my neighbors was a 12-year-old Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix with the unoriginal but practical name of Shep. His owners, retired ranchers, had sold their property near Nathrop and settled in town, raising vegetables and a lawn instead of beef. Shep had been a working animal, earning his living on the ranch moving cattle and guarding against bears, coyotes, deer, and other, smaller critters. I don’t think he ever really got used to town life.
Article by Clint Driscoll
Community – September 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine –
If you’re going to get injured in a traffic accident, don’t do it in northern Saguache County on a weekend.