Frontier wherewithal
Not just another old west town. First freeze October 2, plows at six inches, twice the water, two elk, and the tunnels. We love it here anyway.
The first freeze over here lands on October 2, on average, and it landed on September 1 once, in 1911, so nobody on this side of the interstate has ever been entirely safe in September. We've always wrestled a bit with nature here, and that's most of the fun.
If you're new, you might think this is just another old west town. If you're passing through, maybe we should let you believe it. We're about getting to work. And getting to play. And getting to choose our own way. We'll invite you to leave, and may invite you to stay. But we'll do it with a smile, either way. (That rhymed. It's going to keep happening. I'm sorry.)
Here's the frontier part, which is mostly the art of not dying and mostly not that hard. The hose comes off the spigot by the first of October, and if yours is still on as you read this, go ahead, I'll wait. The city plows the striped streets first and won't touch your block until six inches have fallen, so the shovel lives by the door from now until April. The sidewalk out front is yours within 24 hours of the snow stopping, and if you can't swing a shovel anymore, Neighborhood Services at 719-444-7891 sends somebody over. That's one of the kinder things this city does. Below zero, the kitchen tap drips and the cabinet under the sink stays open. Then summer. Ours is dry and shorter than most, but it stops and starts and comes back the most, and I'd say we get four to six weeks a year where you want to be holed up in the cabin or in the water (which can be tricky to find over here). Drink twice what you'd drink at sea level, the visitors bureau says. I'd say more. I'm still looking for a doctor who'll put a number on six thousand feet, and when I find one it runs here.
And then the part that makes the winters worth it. Every place with weather like ours has lore, and ours is better than most. A man named Prairie Dog O'Byrne kept two elk, Thunder and Buttons, as pets and working animals, and in the 1880s he drove them hitched to a carriage up and down this avenue, racing the madam Laura Bell past the churches. There are tunnels under the sidewalk from the respectable side of the street to the saloons on the other, and the historical society says the stonework is real and some of the story might not be. Twenty-seven saloons by 1902, and churches preaching against every one of them until the town voted itself dry in 1913. Tunnels and brothels and churches, oh my.
If you think you know this place, you don't. I don't even know it, and I'm always here - four seasons, baby. Send me your winter trick, the one your grandpa swore by, and it runs next week.