As the sun begins a new trip around what Carl Sagan once called this tiny blue dot, it seems to be stopping a bit longer than normal over Pueblo, the economic hub of southern Colorado. “We’re in good shape,” Jeff Shaw told LaVozColorado in an early 2023 interview. Jeff Shaw, Executive Director of the Pueblo Economic Development Council, said the town’s open for business and has everything a prospective newcomer might want: infrastructure, an abundance of land and the one thing everyone desires, water.
Apparently, Shaw is on to something because one of Pueblo’s biggest employers just announced plans to expand. The company, CS Wind, one of the world’s largest wind energy companies wants to make its Pueblo operation the world’s largest manufacturing center for wind towers. The expansion would also include adding up to 850 jobs. When expansion is complete—sometime in 2028—the South Korean-based company is projecting to build as many as 10,000 wind tower sections annually.
When President Biden visited Pueblo in November, he spoke at the CS Wind manufacturing operation. “Jobs,” he said, “that’s what climate is about, not only just saving lives and saving the environment.”
The city will soon be heading to the polls to vote on a new mayor, a position that until four years ago existed only ceremonially. Interestingly, after decades of being run by a city manager and finally choosing to go with a strong mayor form of government, a move to return to the previous form of government was defeated. Backers failed to get the required number of signatures to place the item on the ballot.
The same election that failed to include a return to the old form of government also included a mayoral election. With no candidate getting the requisite number of votes, a January election is set pitting the two top voter getters against one another.
The mayoral runoff election between current mayor Nick Gradisar and Pueblo City Council President Heather Graham is set for January 23rd.
In March, LaVozColorado featured profiles on four Latinas making a difference in their southern Colorado communities. The four, Puebloans Andrea Aragon, Elizabeth Gallegos, Charlotte Vasquez and San Luis businesswoman and politician Ronda Lovato were featured.
Three of Pueblo’s first residents, Charles Autobee, Marcelino Baca and Teresita Sandoval are now permanently ensconced outside of Pueblo’s city hall. Autobee, who was born in 1812, was an expert trapper, fur trader and a purveyor of whiskey. He spoke several languages, including a few Native American dialects and was also Huerfano County’s first commissioner.
Sandoval, born in 1811 in Taos, New Mexico, opened up one of the first trading posts in what would later become Pueblo. Baca, born in 1808, was also a trapper, trader and entrepreneur.
Baca’s statue was created by noted San Luis artist Huberto Maestas whose art has been sold all over the world. One of his pieces is on permanent display at the Vatican. His work can also be seen at the San Luis Stations of the Cross monument.
In creating the Baca piece, Maestas told LaVozColorado that without photographs and only a few images of the man in paintings, he had to rely on his own ingenuity. He bought a beaver hat, a common wardrobe item in the day, and mod- eled the likeness after himself. “So,” he said with a slightly suppressed chuckle, “Marcelino Baca forever in history will look like me.”
In April, Pueblo artists Jean Latka and Jean Eskra set in motion a campaign to plant 60 new trees and 250 shrubs at the city’s Dutch Clark Stadium. Most of the funds to buy the new greenery—up to $300 for some trees—have been raised by the pair. Their organization is called Trees Please. Latka said beside the trees having an aesthetic effect, they also have a more practical one, too. “We need to cool our streets because they absorb our heat all day long and radiate all night long,” said Latka.
With more than 20,000 expatriate Puebloans living in the metro area, a story last August brought home more than a few memories. It featured the city’s Saint Anne’s parish, the keystone for the community—affectionately called ‘Dogpatch’— in matters both religious and civic. The church, said parish priest, Father Joseph Vigil, a source of community pride.
When community members see it may need some new paint, gardening or simple maintenance, he said, they step up. “They volunteer their love and work,” said Father Vigil.
“They take pride in Saint Anne’s.” Without the lend-a-hand effort by the community, he said, “our church could not survive.”
As the summer of ’23 came to an end, Pueblo prepared for its 29th annual ‘Chile & Frijoles Festival.’ The festival is the crown jewel of fall celebrations in southern Colorado. The three-day event staged on historic Union Avenue has grown exponentially since its debut. The event now attracts more than 150,000 people with some coming from hundreds of miles away. The event is ever changing and now has a balloon lighting to kick it off.
But like so many things, chile has not been immune to economic or environmental forcesr. The Pueblo crop—which locals say far surpasses the quality of the better known New Mexico Hatch chile—suffered this season. The spring planting, said Pueblo chile farmer Carla Houghton, “did not produce the chile it should have.” She said weather patterns produced too few hot days and cool nights were supplanted by cold ones. As a result, yields were down, prices went up. But the taste remained, as Puebloans say, its usual ‘excel- lent bordering upon supreme.’
Penrose, a small community in Fremont County, made the news for all the wrong—really, really wrong—reasons this year. The owners of the Penrose Return to Nature Funeral Home were arrested and charged with 190 counts of corpse abuse, theft, money laundering, forgery and illegally crossing state lines in an attempt to flee justice.
Carrie and John Hallford, authorities say, took money for ‘green’ burials from more than 190 families and failed to perform proper burials and cremations. Authorities say when they searched the business, they found the nearly 200 bodies improperly stored. In fact, it was a tip from a neighbor who complained to authorities of a stench emanating from the business.
Further violating the sensibilities of families who had turned their loved ones over to the Hallfords, was the fact that the business was also being used for taxidermy, the preservation of animal skins for the purpose of study or display. The matter is now being handled by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
News of Pueblo and southern Colorado will continue to be featured in LaVozColorado in 2024. The region’s growth and diversity make it one of Colorado’s most beautiful and valuable assets.
