Pueblo wanderings

Pueblo County Courthouse

The culture changes as one moves down the Front Range. Cowboys in Cheyenne, college towns of Fort Collins and Boulder, sprawling metropolis of Denver shifts, conservative Colorado Springs.

As the last large town before the New Mexican state line - or Santa Fe, for that matter - Pueblo sits on the old Mexican border with the U.S. Fountain Creek, one of the main streams through Colorado Springs, originates up on Pikes Peak and meets the Arkansas River.

The brass dome of the Pueblo County Courthouse gleams at the north end of downtown, easily spotted from the interstate. The city has more than 100,000 people and the metro area has more than 260,000. Plumes of steam rose from smokestacks to the south, testament to Pueblo's reputation as the steel town of the west.

I pulled out my camera to snap some pictures, and nothing happened - I left the freshly charged battery in the charge home in the Springs. So I would rely on my cell phone to capture a few angles of Pueblo.

I headed further downtown, crossing the Pueblo Riverwalk, quiet this early on a Saturday. Within a few sunny hours, people would congregate on its brick walks and patios.

At the other end of downtown stood the august Pueblo Train Depot, anchoring a block of the historic district. Now privately owned, several businesses operated out of the renovated station, as well as a healthy space for event rentals staff set up tables and place settings for a wedding.

From less tolerant times

Voices echoes through the hallways where Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson has passed in its heyday as a passenger terminal. At one time, 20 passenger trains a train stopped at the depot.

At several doors, historic signs reminded of an ignominious past, when only white Americans could sit in parts of the train station, and anyone else had to wait near the baggage depot. Good thing we have moved so far beyond that hatred of "others." Train travel may return to the depot someday.

On an opposing corner sits the Pueblo Heritage Museum, a local history museum in the former Denver and Rio Grande Western Freight Station, built on the site of the old Victoria Hotel that was badly damaged by 1921 flooding. I expect to explore that museum on another trip. 

Neon alley

To spot some of downtown's best attractions, visitors need to look at less obvious spaces. Wedged among the old brick buildings was Neon Alley, where dozens of vintage neon signs decorated the walls. City ordinance prevents display neon on the front of buildings so the collector who obtained all the old signs installed them on the alley winding through the city's historic district. Not all are obvious, and it's fun to spend a bit staring at the building walls and picking out the signs.

Bustling coffeeshops and antique stores come to life on this premature spring day. Pueblo was rich with energy among its historic buildings, including the Vail Hotel (now senior living) and more. The town lacked skyscrapers or even the mid-rise buildings of the Springs but it never lacked character.

The museum I intended to visit was more centrally located in downtown. The El Pueblo History Museum includes a history of the region, its role as a borderland, and its present-day history as a steel town a producer of chiles.

One case displayed the sword and scabbard worn by Zebulon Pike when he died at Fort York outside Toronto during the War of 1812, the scabbard dented by the same debris that killed Pike when an ammo dump blew up.

Pike's sword and scabbard

Another exhibit ran through the Ludlow  Massacre, which occurred south of Pueblo near Trinidad. Striking miners kicked out of housing owned by the mining companies set up a tent colony. When the National Guard opened fire, they killed wives and children of many miners. Ludlow is a ghost town now, but one worth remembering.

Remnants of the El Pueblo trading post are under excavation on the museum site. Unfortunately they were still closed for the winter this early in March. 

A day of wandering left me hungry, and Gray's Coors Tavern beckoned. Built on a one-time Coors distributorship, the bar offers the original version of the slopper - two burger patties served open-faced, smothered in cheese, onions and green chiles, then topped with French fries. It took a while to arrive, but no matter - delays happened in  a cult restaurant on a Saturday afternoon.

Pueblo sits in Colorado's "banana belt" - winters are mild, and with altitudes below 5,000 feet, summers get a little toasty. Pueblo also hosts in the Colorado State Fair in late August, when the heat finally begins to break.

When the weather is good, I need remember that the more I take the 40-mile trek to Pueblo, the shorter it gets.

Pueblo historic district - at least one block of it