Category — 1994 June

[amazon-product]0870811606[/amazon-product]Review by Hal Walter

Wildlife – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Cutthroat – Native Trout of the West
by Patrick C. Trotter
Published in 1987 by University Press of Colorado
0-87081-166-5 (paper)
ISBN: 0-87081-160-6 (cloth)

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Article by Ed Quillen

Social services – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

A dozen years ago, our younger daughter, Abby, attended Strawberry Door Pre-School in Salida. One evening at dinner, we asked about her day, expecting to hear that some Brittany or Geoffrey had learned to tie shoelaces or count past ten.

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Essay by Ellen Miller

Rural health – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

The old Scout handbook included all kinds of instructions about surviving in rattlesnake country. It had instructions about carrying something for a tourniquet, a razor blade or sharp pocket knife for cutting, and a suction cup for getting the poison out. The thrust of it was that, as in the days of the frontier, once you get out to the big empty you’re on your own.

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Article by Martha & Ed Quillen

Local History – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

The French philosopher Voltaire once observed that the Holy Roman Empire “was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

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Article by Sharon Chickering

Transportation – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

“All Abooooard!” conductor Carl Benz shouts as the whistle wails.

With a jerk, the maroon, green, and white diesel engine of the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad begins backing up the track — red caboose in the lead. The rear brakeman keeps an alert eye on the track unraveling before him. The rail cars slip past the back alleys and Victorian shotgun houses of Leadville, then the old freight depot and boarded-up former St. Vincent’s Hospital. Colorado’s two highest peaks, Massive and Elbert, loom to the west.

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Article by Lynda La Rocca

Local festival – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Since 1984, Leadville has resurrected its boisterous boomtown predecessor, Oro City, for an annual festival. But it’s not going to happen this year.

Like the mythical phoenix, however, and, come to think of it, like numerous Colorado mining towns, including Leadville — Oro City is slated to rise again after this year’s hiatus. And the reanimated Oro City promises to be bigger, better, and longer.

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Article by Patrick Lee

Talk Radio – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Patrick: “KVRH Talk Show, thanks for calling.”

Caller: “Pahtraik, ah don’t thaink it’s raht, no, them Rebublicans sayin’ what they said.”

Patrick: “What’d they say?”

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Brief by Central Staff

Various – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Hitting the Big Time

CITY DESKS EVERYWHERE — Central Colorado is attracting some national attention. The Bishop Castle, down by Rye on the edge of the Wet Mountain Valley, was featured on both National Public Radio and on the ABC Day One program.

Mountain Bob Leasure, known well to Westcliffe people, continues to draw coverage in his effort to set a world record for staying underground. He tried it once before at the Molly Kathleen Mine in Cripple Creek, and now he’s in the San Isabel Mine at Buckskin Joe near the Royal Gorge. The current record is 210 days, and if he stays until May 30, he’ll beat it. He plans to stay underground until June 15.

The Denver Post recently devoted a spread to the alligator farm near Moffat. The Post also detailed a day-care program in Leadville. And it had a story about a free weekly newspaper starting sometime soon in Salida.

One reason we started Colorado Central was that the region seemed almost invisible from the outside, and it’s easy for mainstream America to ignore what it can’t see.

Lately central Colorado appears quite visible — have we succeeded already?

From Deep in the Heart

WESTCLIFFE — Jim Little, publisher of the Wet Mountain Tribune, decided to take a break from the mud with a short trip to Texas last April. Upon his return, he wrote about it.

One observation: Until eight years ago, there weren’t any falls in Wichita Falls, so they built a 54-foot waterfall. Jim also noted that “there are some places where word hasn’t got out that the North won the Civil War,” but concluded that “the Lone Star State is a great place to visit.”

Though Jim was generally complimentary, apparently he wasn’t nice enough. One Dana Wood of Wichita Falls wrote back that “We board up our little towns to keep wandering, unemployed Coloradans from getting into them,” and that “most of the employed people in Colorado are directly or indirectly on a Texan’s payroll.”

The zingers continued: “Only God and Texans can create a waterfall…We also have the ability to construct an airport with a baggage system that neither eats the luggage nor loses it.”

So, no Texas jokes. We admire Texans for their sense of place and continuity of local culture — no matter what happens, Texas is always Texas.

Besides, when Colorado and Texas did fight in a real war — the Battle of La Glorieta Pass on March 27, 1862 in New Mexico — the Colorado Volunteers defeated the invading Confederates.

However, the hero of that battle, John Chivington, was later court-martialed for the atrocities he committed at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. The territorial governor, John Gilpin, financed the militia to repel the Texans by issuing unauthorized federal warrants, and lost his job on that account.

Though many histories claim that the Battle of La Glorieta Pass saved Colorado’s gold from Confederate hands, military historians often argue that the battle was irrelevant. If the Texas army had continued to march north, the Yankess still could have dispatched an army west from St. Louis to keep the gold mines.

But even if it really didn’t matter, Colorado did win the battle.

Highest City Blues

LEADVILLE — Is the Cloud City a live-and-let-live sort of place, as its historic reputation suggests, or a narrow-minded bastion of intolerance or worse?

Doubtless it depends upon whom you ask, and the weekly Herald-Democrat of late has published letters arguing both sides.

One Becky Henning said the place always seemed pretty when they vacationed there from Kansas, and so they moved west.

“One of the neighborhood women screaming names like whore, bitch and slut at my 13-year-old daughter….Not everyone here was hateful, mean, judgmental, narrow-minded, stuck up…I must say our six weeks living here has been an experience I wish never to repeat and hope to forget.”

After that appeared, others sprang to the city’s defense. Kathy Vosberg wrote that “I have been treated with kindness and graciousness by folks of all nationalities and ethnic backgrounds….Leadville is a place where people like you just because you are you, not by what you wear, or how expensive your vehicle is…there are three roads leading out of town. Or, click your heels twice and go back to Kansas!”

Sidebar by Sue Conroe

Water forum – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Reactions to the Upper Arkansas Watershed Forum from other participants varied considerably, based on the evaluation forms that were turned in.

ON THE UPBEAT SIDE:

“Water is a public resource largely in private hands. The forum provided the interface for the two entities.”

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Article by Sue Conroe

Water – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Quality, quantity, good news, education, and the future categorized discussion at the first Upper Arkansas Watershed Forum held April 7 and 8.

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Essay by Steve Voynick

Public Land – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

The perception of our national forests largely depends on who’s perceiving. If you live in New York City, L.A., or even Denver, the national forests are some distant, out-of-sight, out-of-mind tracts of federally owned land, conveniently managed by the government.

But if you live in places like Saguache, Leadville, Buena Vista, Salida, Fairplay, or Westcliffe, the national forests are our back yards and a way of life — our turf.

San Isabel National Forest covers 1,900 square miles from Leadville to well south of Westcliffe. Add the adjoining districts of White River, Gunnison, Pike, and Rio Grande national forests, and our back yards amount to about 4,000 square miles — an area two-thirds the size of New Jersey — of pine forests, peaks, ridges, cliffs, aspen groves, creeks, and high meadows.

We use our back yards for hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, exploring, four-wheeling, rock collecting, climbing, skiing, mountain-biking, snowshoeing, and for a special place to be on those days when you know damned well you shouldn’t be around a highway, a telephone, or people. Proximity to our national forests is a big reason we live here.

But the United States Forest Service, custodian and administrator of 360,000 square miles of national forests across the country, wants to change the way we use our back yards. On Feb. 16, 1994, the Forest Service wrote into the Federal Register twelve pages of proposed new regulations governing use of the forests.

AMONG THE MANY THINGS the Forest Service wishes to ban or restrict, upon district order, are possession of firearms (apart from legal hunting purposes), possession of glass containers (primarily beer bottles), making loud noises, shooting out car windows, fighting, and using language that may be construed to be obscene or threatening.

But consider the national forests from the perception of the Forest Service. On summer holiday weekends, undermanned Forest Service officials cope regularly with drunken, armed clowns screaming epithets that would make Clint Eastwood characters think twice. No joke. I know a former Leadville district ranger who told horror stories about campground behavior.

As justification for its new rules proposal, the Forest Service cites increasing use of the national forests, coupled with a reduction in federal funding. This makes adequate supervision and protection difficult.

There’s no question about pressure from increased visitation and use. When the U.S. Forest Service took over the federal forest reserves in 1905, the U.S. population was 80 million. Today it’s 255 million for the same amount of forest. Recreation visitor-days in the national forests rose from 234 million in 1980 to 263 million in 1990 — a 12 percent increase when the population grew by only 9 percent.

Nonetheless, the Forest Service is over-reacting, following a trend toward bigger and more intrusive government. Consider these clauses in its sweeping proposed regulations, which would cover all national forests: disturbing or damaging any paleontological (fossil) resource, removing any mineral or mineral resources, and buying, selling, or bartering, or offering to buy, sell, or barter, any natural feature or any other property of the United States.

But existing law already protects vertebrate fossils, and many areas with valuable mineral or fossil resources have already been withdrawn from public use. In essence, the Forest Service wants to ban casual mineral collecting, or “rockhounding,” one of the most basic and traditional recreational uses of the national forests.

As the proposals are written, picking up a rock in the national forests would be illegal. Technically, a hiker or collector who saw an interesting rock would have to file a plan of operation with the district ranger, wait for review (weeks, months?), then, upon approval, return and collect the aforementioned rock. All of the proposed regulations are subject to “special permission or written authorization.”

Asinine? You bet. Enforcement of the “buy, sell, barter” ruling, for example, would be impossible, since rocks found in national forests have a striking resemblance to rocks found on adjoining BLM or private lands.

BUT THE REAL ISSUE of concern is more government regulation, part of the trend away from public land use and toward public land protection. The Forest Service can much more effectively address its problems with specific target-oriented regulations, rather than broad, and inherently unenforceable, rules, all of which will curtail your use of your backyard.

The public-comment period on the proposed new regulations ended in late May, but the decision should not come before September. The Forest Service and your elected representatives, who are paid to listen, would still like to know your views. Write your representatives or to Jack Ward, Chief of Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, P.O. Box 96090, Washington DC 20090-6090.

If you live in New York, L.A., or Denver, don’t bother to write, but if you live around here, it’s our back yard, and our way of life, that they’re going to regulate.

Steve Voynick of Leadville is author of Colorado Rockhounding, as well as many other works of mineral and mining lore.

Essay by Ed Quillen

Journalism – June 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine

Early in May, we ventured to Gunnison for the annual conference on rural journalism that George Sibley puts together at Western State College.

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