They both have coal mining — or did, in Cañon's case. And they both have fictional U. S. marshals who make up the law as they go along.
Showing posts with label Canon City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canon City. Show all posts
Sheriff's Deputy Warns Cat Not to Shit in Neighbor's Yard
From the sheriff's blotter in the Cañon City Daily Record.
¶ Colo. 115, Brookside, report of over 30 goats in the road. Goats fled the scene before deputy arrived.
¶ Colo. 115/Mackenzie, Cañon City, reporting party called to advise that a subject wearing a mask and dressed in black ran across the highway and into a building. Deputies checked the area with negative contact.
(Always black in these reports. At least if "subject" wore orange, he might be a prison escapee. The only building there is the ruined Fawn Hollow Tavern, which was a "bucket of blood" roadhouse in the 1940s–1950s.)
¶ U.S. 50, Cañon City, reporting party requested assistance in retrieving her husband from his girlfriend's residence. Deputy advised the parties to work it out, as the husband wouldn't come out until the wife left the area.
¶ 1500 block Chestnut, Cañon City, reporting party complained that the neighbor's cat had been leaving presents in her yard. Deputy said he would contact the neighbor and warn the cat.
There was also an actual bank robbery where some 19-year-old robbed a bank in the town where he lived without even bothering to put on a mask. He was quickly caught.
¶ Colo. 115, Brookside, report of over 30 goats in the road. Goats fled the scene before deputy arrived.
¶ Colo. 115/Mackenzie, Cañon City, reporting party called to advise that a subject wearing a mask and dressed in black ran across the highway and into a building. Deputies checked the area with negative contact.
(Always black in these reports. At least if "subject" wore orange, he might be a prison escapee. The only building there is the ruined Fawn Hollow Tavern, which was a "bucket of blood" roadhouse in the 1940s–1950s.)
¶ U.S. 50, Cañon City, reporting party requested assistance in retrieving her husband from his girlfriend's residence. Deputy advised the parties to work it out, as the husband wouldn't come out until the wife left the area.
¶ 1500 block Chestnut, Cañon City, reporting party complained that the neighbor's cat had been leaving presents in her yard. Deputy said he would contact the neighbor and warn the cat.
There was also an actual bank robbery where some 19-year-old robbed a bank in the town where he lived without even bothering to put on a mask. He was quickly caught.
Restoring the Royal Gorge Burn
Tracy Harmon at the Pueblo Chieftain has a story with photos today on restoration following last June's Royal Gorge Fire, which was they are now saying was human-caused, as I suspected. (Arson or accident—they are not saying which).
One big issue is trying to keep sediment out of Cañon City's municipal water intake, which is just downstream of where the fire jumped the Arkansas River.
The scenic bridge and surrounding park are open weekends—get updates at their site.
One big issue is trying to keep sediment out of Cañon City's municipal water intake, which is just downstream of where the fire jumped the Arkansas River.
The scenic bridge and surrounding park are open weekends—get updates at their site.
Detail:
Restoring the Royal Gorge Burn
Blog Stew on the Scenic Railroad
¶ After the June 2013 fire, the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park is reopening for limited hours. Meanwhile, the scenic train that goes from Cañon City up the gorge and back is upgrading and hoping to get its tourist riders back.
¶ GQ magazine runs another art-of-manliness story on being introduced to deer and elk hunting in Montana. Actually, it's not bad; it has a Chesapeake Bay retriever in it. (Hat tip: Suburban Bushwacker)
¶ Most water from the Fraser River in Middle Park gets sent under the Continental Divide and into Denver's water system. Trout Unlimited, however, has worked out a new deal to protect flows for fisheries by regulating when the water is removed and how much.
[Owner Mark] Greksa believes his yearly passenger counts will increase as he continues to add amenities. Last year, he let passengers pay to ride in the locomotive next to the engineer. He also eliminated the train's "concession car," which offered only vended foods to coach customers, and created a dining car where they can order hot food, and a "bar car" with bistro-styled tables. Food offerings include beef and buffalo items, organic chicken and a crafted pale ale, Royal Gorge Route Rogue, Greksa said. In the summer, the train will offer dishes made from rattlesnake, antelope and ostrich.¶ Managers at the national wildlife refuges in the San Luis Valley are wondering if groundwater pumping rules will affect the areas flooded for sandhill crane habitat.GQ
¶ GQ magazine runs another art-of-manliness story on being introduced to deer and elk hunting in Montana. Actually, it's not bad; it has a Chesapeake Bay retriever in it. (Hat tip: Suburban Bushwacker)
¶ Most water from the Fraser River in Middle Park gets sent under the Continental Divide and into Denver's water system. Trout Unlimited, however, has worked out a new deal to protect flows for fisheries by regulating when the water is removed and how much.
The deal announced Tuesday could make the Fraser the most-watched river in Colorado – and maybe in the West. It sets out an innovative, science-based plan that seeks to balance increasing urban needs for water with an imperative to restore crucial habitat for river trout.Me, I see the Fraser only when looking out the window of Amtrak's California Zephyr and thinking, "That looks really fishable in there." Maybe I should do something about that.
Detail:
Blog Stew on the Scenic Railroad
They Walk Among Us
Over in Frémont County, a/k/a "Prison Valley" (photo essay), people must be extra-worried about other people walking down the road. Reading the sheriff's blotter in the Cañon City Daily Record, I keep seeing entries like these, from late January:
On the other hand,
CR 123/Brush Hollow/Penrose, reporting party reported a male party going down the road waving his arms and talking to himself. Subject was contacted, and he was walking home from Walmart and was OK.Maybe it is because every year there are a few actual escaped inmates wandering around, most of them caught fairly easily.
Colo. 115/Telck/Florence, report of a party dressed in black walking on the edge of the road. Deputy checked the area with no contact.
On the other hand,
Fremont Street, Penrose, deputy dispatched to check on a party acting strangely in his driveway. Party's behavior was part of his religious practice.If he had a colander on his head, he would be a Pastafarian. Otherwise, we need more information!
Detail:
They Walk Among Us
The Revolution Was Not Televised, So I Missed It
From the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, as reported in the Cañon City Daily Record.
Wednesday, December 18: FCSO captain spoke with two parties in the lobby demanding assistance with contacting the Secret Service. One party had been contacted several times in the past week regarding the same request. Today he had an accomplice who was wearing a green mask and cape and wouldn't identify himself or speak. They warned that there would be a revolution on Friday.
Thursday, December 19: FCSO in Cañon City, male party was in the lobby again asking for the Secret Service and updating the captain on Friday's revolution. He stated it wouldn't take place in Fremont County.
I was in one Fremont County town on the 22nd and streets were quiet. I may be down in Cañon City today, and I will keep my eyes open. But I remember what Gil Scott Heron used to say.
Wednesday, December 18: FCSO captain spoke with two parties in the lobby demanding assistance with contacting the Secret Service. One party had been contacted several times in the past week regarding the same request. Today he had an accomplice who was wearing a green mask and cape and wouldn't identify himself or speak. They warned that there would be a revolution on Friday.
Thursday, December 19: FCSO in Cañon City, male party was in the lobby again asking for the Secret Service and updating the captain on Friday's revolution. He stated it wouldn't take place in Fremont County.
I was in one Fremont County town on the 22nd and streets were quiet. I may be down in Cañon City today, and I will keep my eyes open. But I remember what Gil Scott Heron used to say.
Lost Italian Restaurants, Ghost-Town Guidebook Snobbery, and a Whiff of Coal Smoke in the Air
A wave of disappointment rippled across southern Colorado on December 4th when an article in the Pueblo Chieftain announced that Merlino's Belvedere restaurant was closing at the end of 2013, a casualty, its owners said, of the economy in general—and maybe another domino following after last summer's Royal Gorge Fire.
Opened in 1946 in the fruit-growing area of Lincoln Park, on the south edge of Cañon City, it had been operated by three generations of the Merlino family and drew diners from at least four counties.
We still go back there for dinners with visiting friends and relatives, so last Friday night we decided to make a farewell visit. An early time would be OK, we thought.
So did about seventy other people — and they had reservations.
We ended up instead at the Royal Gorge Brewing Co. in downtown Cañon City, eating OK pub food, but it wasn't the spaghetti aglia e olio that M. had set her heart on.
And we talked about restaurants and about our six years (1986-1992) in Cañon City, which started in near-poverty and ended with us on our way up and out.
We went there because I had a magazine-editing job that collapsed with the magazine itself — most start-ups fail. Then 1987 was the worst — collecting unemployment, doing odd jobs, selling a few freelance pieces, with the emphasis on few.
When we could afford a cheap dinner out, we did not go to Merlino's but to somewhere even closer to our modest 1908 smelter worker's cottage in South Cañon — Sali's Paradise, haunt of movie stars and (reputedly) Pueblo and local mafiosi looking for a quiet place to eat their steak, noodles, and red sauce.
Cañon City, we learned, was glued together from three towns: East Cañon, South Cañon (our part, sort of the wrong side of the tracks), and Cañon City proper.
Then there was unincorporated Lincoln Park and other little towns: tiny Prospect Heights with its abandoned one-cell jail, Brookside (former location of the Hell's Half Acre saloon district), and the other "coal camps": Radiant, Rockvale, Coal Creek, Williamsburg, Chandler — some reduced to true ghost-town status, others merely clinging on.
Gus and Doris Salardino (hence "Sali's") had come from Rockvale, where the family had the Gold Nugget saloon before coal mining dropped off in the 1920s. But at Sali's Paradise, the calendar seemed to have stopped in 1948, with the neon lights in the bar and the big sepia photo of President Harry Truman hanging in the dining room.
But they got the antipasti to the table fast, and if they were out of the wine you ordered from the modest list, the waitress would scamper across Cyanide Avenue to the liquor store.
That's right, the restaurant stood unabashedly at 807 Cyanide Avenue. And there are streets named "Cyanide" in neighboring Florence, Colo., and Lead, S.D., among other places I have been. It's a mining-town thing.
Something I had already figured out was that there is a sort of "class line" in Colorado ghost town writing. You can find lots of books by authors such as Sandra Dallas about the precious-metals mining towns — you get St. Elmo, Victor, Blackhawk, East TIncup, etc. etc. over and over again.
But you never hear about the coal camps: Cokedale, Segundo, Coal Creek, and the rest. Because gold and silver are romantic but coal is dirty? The work, the labor issues, the mining-town life — a lot of that seemed about the same. (1)
M. and I had thought of moving to Rockvale — it seemed safe from any threat of gentrification — but there was no irrigation water, so we ended up in South Cañon as shareholders in the DeWeese-Dye Ditch, which gave our quarter acre plenty of water once I re-dug the lateral. (2)
When the annual meeting came, I would collect my neighbors' proxies and attend, just for more "time travel." We would meet in Brookside Hall, a bare rectangular room furnished with folding chairs, bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling, and a whiff of coal smoke in the air. 1948? It was more like maybe 1932. Someone would come around holding out his Stetson had, and you would toss your ballot in.
But "time travel" and the odder nooks of eastern Fremont County could not hold us forever — we wanted cooler summer temperatures and trees, and so we moved upwards in elevation, out of the piñon-juniper belt and into the pines.
And for several springs thereafter I would get this uneasy feeling in March: "When is a good windless day to burn the ditch?"
Sali's Paradise is long gone, Merlino's Belvedere is closing, and I don't know where the ditch company holds its annual meeting anymore.
(1) Some of the coal camps were company towns, such as Chandler, and the mining company sold off all the buildings when the mine shut down.
(2) Acequita to my New Mexico readers.
Opened in 1946 in the fruit-growing area of Lincoln Park, on the south edge of Cañon City, it had been operated by three generations of the Merlino family and drew diners from at least four counties.
We still go back there for dinners with visiting friends and relatives, so last Friday night we decided to make a farewell visit. An early time would be OK, we thought.
So did about seventy other people — and they had reservations.
We ended up instead at the Royal Gorge Brewing Co. in downtown Cañon City, eating OK pub food, but it wasn't the spaghetti aglia e olio that M. had set her heart on.
 |
| Sali's Club Paradise, 807 Cyanide Avenue, Prospect Heights, from old postcard. |
We went there because I had a magazine-editing job that collapsed with the magazine itself — most start-ups fail. Then 1987 was the worst — collecting unemployment, doing odd jobs, selling a few freelance pieces, with the emphasis on few.
When we could afford a cheap dinner out, we did not go to Merlino's but to somewhere even closer to our modest 1908 smelter worker's cottage in South Cañon — Sali's Paradise, haunt of movie stars and (reputedly) Pueblo and local mafiosi looking for a quiet place to eat their steak, noodles, and red sauce.
Cañon City, we learned, was glued together from three towns: East Cañon, South Cañon (our part, sort of the wrong side of the tracks), and Cañon City proper.
Then there was unincorporated Lincoln Park and other little towns: tiny Prospect Heights with its abandoned one-cell jail, Brookside (former location of the Hell's Half Acre saloon district), and the other "coal camps": Radiant, Rockvale, Coal Creek, Williamsburg, Chandler — some reduced to true ghost-town status, others merely clinging on.
But they got the antipasti to the table fast, and if they were out of the wine you ordered from the modest list, the waitress would scamper across Cyanide Avenue to the liquor store.
That's right, the restaurant stood unabashedly at 807 Cyanide Avenue. And there are streets named "Cyanide" in neighboring Florence, Colo., and Lead, S.D., among other places I have been. It's a mining-town thing.
Something I had already figured out was that there is a sort of "class line" in Colorado ghost town writing. You can find lots of books by authors such as Sandra Dallas about the precious-metals mining towns — you get St. Elmo, Victor, Blackhawk, East TIncup, etc. etc. over and over again.
But you never hear about the coal camps: Cokedale, Segundo, Coal Creek, and the rest. Because gold and silver are romantic but coal is dirty? The work, the labor issues, the mining-town life — a lot of that seemed about the same. (1)
M. and I had thought of moving to Rockvale — it seemed safe from any threat of gentrification — but there was no irrigation water, so we ended up in South Cañon as shareholders in the DeWeese-Dye Ditch, which gave our quarter acre plenty of water once I re-dug the lateral. (2)
When the annual meeting came, I would collect my neighbors' proxies and attend, just for more "time travel." We would meet in Brookside Hall, a bare rectangular room furnished with folding chairs, bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling, and a whiff of coal smoke in the air. 1948? It was more like maybe 1932. Someone would come around holding out his Stetson had, and you would toss your ballot in.
But "time travel" and the odder nooks of eastern Fremont County could not hold us forever — we wanted cooler summer temperatures and trees, and so we moved upwards in elevation, out of the piñon-juniper belt and into the pines.
And for several springs thereafter I would get this uneasy feeling in March: "When is a good windless day to burn the ditch?"
Sali's Paradise is long gone, Merlino's Belvedere is closing, and I don't know where the ditch company holds its annual meeting anymore.
(1) Some of the coal camps were company towns, such as Chandler, and the mining company sold off all the buildings when the mine shut down.
(2) Acequita to my New Mexico readers.
Colorado's Retail Cannabis Producing a Legal Patchwork
What is happening in Colorado with the new legalization of retail cannabis sales is starting to resemble the situation when states had "wet" and "dry" counties. Counties and cities are all making different decisions, e.g., Pueblo County's acceptance of a large growing operation.
¶ The mountain town of Westcliffe turned down a proposal (PDF file) to use an empty industrial building for a growing operation that would supply retail outlets in the ski town of Breckenridge.
Those sybaritic ski towns, right? Keep 'em high and happy.
¶ Yet Aspen, most sybaritic of all, is located in Garfield County, which has said no to both growers and retailers. The Aspen Times accused opponents of "paranoia."
¶ Touristy Glenwood Springs proposed a marijuana-sales moratorium. So did less-touristy Cañon City.
I could go on.
Meanwhile, people who proudly got medical marijuana cards (a lot of them young men in their twenties) suddenly are realizing that the cops can go traipsing through those records.
The other big problem is money and banking. Banks have been reluctant to handle marijuana dispensaries' cash because doing so illegal under federal if not state law.
Federal legislation has been introduced to remedy the problem, but has not yet gone anywhere. All states with medical marijuana plus Colorado and Washington with their newly legalized recreational use face the same problem:
¶ The mountain town of Westcliffe turned down a proposal (PDF file) to use an empty industrial building for a growing operation that would supply retail outlets in the ski town of Breckenridge.
Those sybaritic ski towns, right? Keep 'em high and happy.
¶ Yet Aspen, most sybaritic of all, is located in Garfield County, which has said no to both growers and retailers. The Aspen Times accused opponents of "paranoia."
¶ Touristy Glenwood Springs proposed a marijuana-sales moratorium. So did less-touristy Cañon City.
I could go on.
Meanwhile, people who proudly got medical marijuana cards (a lot of them young men in their twenties) suddenly are realizing that the cops can go traipsing through those records.
The other big problem is money and banking. Banks have been reluctant to handle marijuana dispensaries' cash because doing so illegal under federal if not state law.
"The mere acceptance of the deposit is literally the very definition of money laundering," explained Don Childears, President and CEO of the Colorado Bankers Association.Dispensaries, therefore, end up trying to places to put all their cash, and piles of cash attract criminals.
Federal legislation has been introduced to remedy the problem, but has not yet gone anywhere. All states with medical marijuana plus Colorado and Washington with their newly legalized recreational use face the same problem:
In all 21 of those states, federal laws are creating criminal and regulatory barriers to banks and credit unions, prohibiting them from accepting licensed marijuana growers, retailers and dispensaries as customers.The federal government has the big stick, and the political journal Roll Call reports that President Obama's thinking "hasn't evolved."
Previous post on growers, "Making Money in a Mountain Subdivision."
What's not Rocks is Cactus, and What's not Cactus is Barbed Wire
At least in this drought year the cholla cactus is blooming profusely, everywhere. They look like rose bushes. Very unfriendly rose bushes.
Blog Stew, a Little Burnt
Items that might deserve longer individual posts but will not get them. . .
• Speculation about the closure of the Royal Gorge Bridge and park (now reduced to the bridge and a tollbooth, as in 1929) and its effect on southern Colorado tourism, with a telling photograph.
• Unlike Bloomberg, I would not all the American Prairie Preserve project a "land grab." Its rich backers are buying the land. But true, once the number of cattle and/or sheep ranchers falls below some critical point, there might be domino effect on the rest.
• A piece from the Nature Conservancy magazine on "water wars" in the San Luis Valley. Speaking of rich guys buying up big chunks of the West, I don't care how many monks his wife brought in, I never trusted Maurice Strong at all. This was the issue that dominated the 1990s there and led, ultimately to a new map of the valley's west side.
• Speculation about the closure of the Royal Gorge Bridge and park (now reduced to the bridge and a tollbooth, as in 1929) and its effect on southern Colorado tourism, with a telling photograph.
• Unlike Bloomberg, I would not all the American Prairie Preserve project a "land grab." Its rich backers are buying the land. But true, once the number of cattle and/or sheep ranchers falls below some critical point, there might be domino effect on the rest.
• A piece from the Nature Conservancy magazine on "water wars" in the San Luis Valley. Speaking of rich guys buying up big chunks of the West, I don't care how many monks his wife brought in, I never trusted Maurice Strong at all. This was the issue that dominated the 1990s there and led, ultimately to a new map of the valley's west side.
Detail:
Blog Stew, a Little Burnt
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