If you ask for a single reason to visit Cañon City, southern Colorado’s off the beaten path hamlet, don’t ask a local and especially don’t ask the town’s Mayor, Ashley Smith, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. For starters, the Mayor will tell you that Cañon City is celebrating its sesquicentennial, 150 years as a town and it doesn’t stop there. As you might expect, Smith is the town’s biggest booster.

Fremont County and Cañon City, the county seat, are nearly dead center in Colorado and home to just under 50,000 countywide residents. The region’s first White settlers arrived in early 1858 after gold was discovered just north of where the city lies today. But it wasn’t until 1862 when oil was discovered just north of the city’s boundaries that the town incorporated and began to grow.

The first well drilled in the region also became the first commercial well west of the Mississippi River. But any dreams of it becoming an oil boom town faded over time. But while the town didn’t become an oil patch, it became something else and something so much better.

The town of Cañon City, despite a population nearing 20,000, might easily be described as a bedroom community, nearly equidistant from Pueblo to the east and Colorado Springs to the north and east. Both sit approximately 40 miles away.

“We’re a small town,” said Smith, before adding that it’s also a town with both charm and authenticity. She describes it as a place where “everybody waves at you when you pass ’em on the street.’ She sells the town as something akin to ‘Mayberry at the foot of the mountains.’

Cañon City is approximately 120 miles southwest of Denver and an easy a drive in good weather. While there are other routes to take, most drivers take I-25 to Colorado Springs before cutting off to state highway 119 and on to Penrose. From there, it’s an easy twelve miles to the west before arriving.

Once there, you might hit one of the town’s many seasonal celebrations or take in one of a handful of what Smith might call Cañon City’s ‘must see’ tourist attractions. And there are a bunch.

In warm weather months, there’s the Royal Gorge and the country’s highest suspension bridge. Or, said the Mayor, you can ride the train that runs beneath it and parallel to the Arkansas River which, according to Smith, is the “most rafted river in the country”. Not for you? Then, she suggests a visit to the Territorial Prison Museum, a facility that traces the history of the state’s and town’s famous or infamous prison legacy. And, though, the town is rich in prison lore—it either houses “nine or ten” correctional facilities, said Smith, Cañon City is so much more than prisons. Nonetheless, Smith is not afraid to drop a little prison minutiae when the time is right and, during the interview, did drop this nugget: Colorado’s prisons not only make all of Colorado’s license plates, “they make them for the whole country.”

But, not unlike a butterfly, Cañon City is emerging from a cocoon. Its downtown, said Smith, is slowly undergoing something of a minor renaissance. The once abandoned Hotel St. Cloud, a hotel that is on the national registry for historic places, has been bought and transformed into “a boutique hotel and high end experience,” the Mayor said. Smith also recommended a visit to the town’s Fremont Center for the Arts or a visit to the Gibson Mansion. Also, if you’re hungry, there are also a few restaurants that have recently opened, including an Indian restaurant, Nirvana, “that rivals any big city restaurant,” she said.

One thing that may surprise, even shock, about Cañon City is that “71 percent of our community commutes outside the city” for jobs, said Smith. A good portion of the town’s workforce holds jobs in high tech. A lot of workers commute to high tech jobs in Colorado Springs, she said. A lot of others stick around town and telecommute to work, “renting office space with everything you would need for your profession.”

Weatherwise, there may not be a more predictable place in Colorado to visit. Despite an elevation that exceeds Denver’s 5,280 feet, the town claims to be ‘the climate capital of Colorado.’ Sitting at 5,300 feet, it’s earned the nickname for its warm winter temperatures and temperate spring and fall readings.

The town officially celebrates is 150th birthday on April 2nd. Part of the celebration will be the unveiling of “a new ‘C,’ for Cañon City, one that will be lit up every night of the year. The idea of two ‘C’s,’ said Smith, was abandoned because it might appear too blurry.

When describing an expert and want the easiest, but most accurate figure of speech to convey the image, a handy metaphor rarely fails. It conjures up a vision that simplifies, yet perfectly describes the person you’re talking about. Such is the case for Kevin Ortiz, General Manager of the Pueblo Convention Center. ‘When you want to know about wood,’ it goes, ‘ask a carpenter.’

Ortiz is that man. When you want to know about Pueblo and everything it has to offer, he’s the ‘go to’ guy. The native Puebloan has been pitching his city to any group, organization or company exploring convention sites whether it’s for reunions, anniversaries or, well, conventions.

But like his counterparts all across the country, the last couple of years have been multiple seasons of discontent. “Obviously, it was a very trying time for the event industry,” Ortiz said in a recent phone interview. “We were in unchartered territory.” The common enemy to ‘business as usual’ was a virus, COVID-19, followed by its progeny variants, Delta and, more recently, Omicron.

In March 2020, just three months after it first appeared, COVID had metastasized almost surrealistically, growing from a regional health issue first discovered in Wuhan, China, and growing into a storm of almost cataclysmic proportion. In just a matter of weeks, the virus had the world in a death grip on a scale comparable only to 1918’s Great Influenza, another virus, one that killed as many as 50 million people worldwide.

Before COVID, Ortiz was counting on a big year for Pueblo and the chance to shine a light on his hometown. But suddenly, the blowtorch year he expected dimmed to an anemic flicker. When the convention center’s phones rang, it was often a cancellation. And while things weren’t totally shut down, said Ortiz, other issues—capacity restrictions and social distancing—turned big paydays into big disappointments or worse, big nothings.

But dark days aren’t anything new to Pueblo, said Ortiz. The city has seen tough times before. Even today, Pueblo has the highest unemployment rate in the state. But this is a town, he said, where truly, the show must go on. And does.

With a combination of imagination and determination, said this son of Pueblo, “We were able to survive.” “One thing about Pueblo, one thing I love so much,” Ortiz boasts, is that “when tough times present themselves, this community really bonds together to make things work, make things happen.” Knowing the stakes and squeezing every possible cent out of state and federal grants, the lights stayed on and, a slow and steady rebound began.

Ortiz said that 2021 was “a fantastic year…events rebooked or rescheduled.” Last summer’s bookings even set convention center records. “July, August and September we had our best financial months in the last six years.”

Everything clicked. “We met our budget…it was a big win.” The ship was righted.

Pueblo, a town that is known as “The Home of Heroes,” for its inordinate number of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, often gets military groups to convene. It also serves as an ideal landing spot for fraternal gatherings or farm and ranch organizations that dot the southern Colorado landscape.

Still, for outsiders who may not have considered Pueblo for a convention, one might ask: where’s the sizzle in Pueblo? Well, that’s Ortiz’s cue. Without blushing nor hint of vanity, Ortiz clears his throat for the pitch. “We have competitive prices; we have good customer service; we have the life that people are looking for when attending events.” The big finish and without an ounce of conceit, “On top of that, our local cuisine is the best in Colorado.” Mexican and Italian food in Pueblo, he said, can’t be beat. And for good measure, he’ll also tell anyone that Pueblo’s Nature Center, Riverwalk and Lake Pueblo are perfect for visitors and their families.

Additionally, Ortiz said Pueblo’s convention center is located adjacent to the city’s biggest hotel, The Marriott. But there is a cluster of other good places to stay, all within walking distance to both the convention center and the city’s downtown. For good measure, he also says downtown offers both culture and nightlife.

Ortiz said the convention center operates as well as it does with the help of a great sales team “that is constantly looking for local and national business.” The convention center, like so many others, also belongs to a consortium of associations “that help promote our community and facility.” In addition, he said, the city’s Chamber of Commerce and the Latino Chamber of Commerce help tremendously. Its success, he said, is a team effort.

Pueblo, said Ortiz, is open for business. “Once we bring ‘em down, we have a very good chance of bringing them back.”

There was a day, and Pueblo and southern Coloradans still talk about it, when the city’s economic climate was sunny almost every day of the year. And why wouldn’t it be? The steel mill, an industry that symbolized Pueblo, was cranking out enough heavy metal to employ as many as 10,000 workers, some of whom traveled from as far away as northern New Mexico and eastern Kansas for the good paying jobs. But that memory is, as they say, ‘so 20th century.’

Pueblo, Colorado’s city with broad shoulders, say its boosters, has everything an employer might want or need to set down roots and make it home. They boast about its great weather—the town is often called ‘the buckle’ of Colorado’s temperate banana belt. It’s also geographically situated next to an interstate highway and with an abundance of rail ready to move just about anything to or through the state and across the country. Yet, it struggles.

The most recent employment data show Pueblo with the state’s highest unemployment rate at 6.4 percent, a figure nearly twice as high as some Denver metro area cities. The only metro area community even close to Pueblo’s jobless number is Adams County whose jobless rate sits at 4.9 percent. Still, at 6.4 percent, the city is a long way from its 2021 high of 9.3 percent. The state average is 4.8 percent.

But Pueblo is not a ‘half-empty’ kind of town, said Jeff Shaw, CEO of the Pueblo Economic Development Corp. Shaw, a Pueblo native, sees opportunity in every direc- tion for the city. “There are still a lot of opportunities for people to be hired and get back into the workforce,” he said in an interview with the Pueblo Chieftain. “Entry level jobs,” for example, “have doubled in pay in the last two to three years.” Some local employers are offering up to $18 an hour plus benefits for entry-level production line and packaging jobs.

Pueblo has found good success in offering economic incentives to companies to move here. Money generated from Pueblo’s half-cent fund for economic development makes it possible to, if not lure them then at least get companies to take the time to learn what it has to offer.

In October, Pueblo and Ecological Materials, announced plans for the company to move its operations from Arizona to Pueblo. The company recycles plastics into materials that can be used in road building. It will employ 17 full time workers with average wages of $44,800 plus benefits.

Also in an October 2021 news release, PEDCO announced that Boreas Campers, a maker of custom, off-road and off-grid camper trailers will soon be calling Pueblo home. In heralding the move, Boreas owner, Matt Reichel, cited Pueblo’s “access to the outdoors, and the bustling downtown” as significant reasons for its move. The company will add 29 full-time workers to Pueblo’s economy at a ‘pre-benefit’ salary of $56,900.

Armstrong Steel also announced in October that it will be relocating from Denver and opening a 200,000 sq. ft manufacturing facility in Pueblo in 2022. In making the announcement, Armstrong CEO, Ethan Chumly, cited Pueblo’s workforce and economic environment as key reasons for the move. “Armstrong’s Pueblo factory is a logical and necessary step toward strengthening the company’s competitive position in the marketplace,” said Chumly.

Armstrong Steel will hire 51 full-time workers at an average salary of $51,400 (pre-benefit). Part of the lure for the steel maker was Pueblo’s $1.2 million dollar economic incentive, money dedicated to business expansion into the city. The money requires approval by the Pueblo City Council.

The steel company manufactures pre-engineered metal buildings and has been in business for fifteen years. Its products include everything from metal sheds, barns, commercial and religious buildings. Its products have been shipped across the United States and to countries around the world. The company said it will be ‘fully operational’ in 2022.