Colorado Information, Photos and Maps

Breckenridge, Colorado

Some of the towns in our area are going through a kind of urban renewal where they rebuild downtown in a replica of what it was like in Victorian days, except this time, the streets are brick and pavement instead of dirt and mud, and there isn't horse manure or cow patties all over the place. Some towns, like Cripple Creek, Black Hawk and Central City, are being rebuilt as a kind of throwback to the early days of saloons and Colorado Casinos. It was originally touted as a means of "saving our Victorian architectural heritage" but in some cases it's not working out like that. What it has done, though, is offer local limited stakes gaming and raised money for the Colorado Historical Society to invest in preserving other historical sites and artifacts. There are casinos operating on a couple of Colorado's Native American reservations, too, but those don't offer the proximity to the Front Range population centers that Cripple Creek, Central City and Black Hawk offer. Colorado also offers the Colorado Lottery and participation in a multi-state Powerball and "Mega Millions" program through many commercial outlets around the state. These days, that seems to be the only retirement plan that many folks have in place...

Las Animas and Huerfano Counties in Colorado, and Colfax County in New Mexico, all had significantly larger populations in 1900 than in 2000. That was because of the coal mines. Most of those were closed by 1957 and almost all those folks left. The population of southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico also took a large hit with the Great Depression and the years of the Dust Bowl drought. Another several years of drought in the late 1950's, early 1960's wiped out quite a few of the remaining ranch/farm towns and left us with lots of broken down relics outside of the major towns in the area. All across the mountainous areas of Colorado you'll find the remains of boom-and-bust mining camps from the 1800's, same as in the eastern plains you'll find the remains of many old towns that dried up and blew away during the Dust Bowl and droughts of the 1950's and 1960's, along with the remains of other towns that were decimated in the aftermath of the commodities market manipulations of the mid-1950's. Colorado just doesn't have a history of financial stability since the Europeans arrived... and even the Native Americans tell stories of past wet and dry periods that caused massive migrations of the tribes across this beautiful landscape.

Now, we're seeing a wave of soon-to-be-retiring baby-boomers looking at this neighborhood with an eye towards spending the rest of their lives in this mostly unpopulated, mostly unpolluted but quickly getting known, countryside.

That's why I built this website: what you see here is based on my own explorations. And, as you can see, I'm a bit in love... that's how this site got out of hand...

Looking for Colorado Real Estate? Live in one of the most popular Colorado cities. Browse complete real estate listings in active cities like Fort Collins, Golden and Boulder on COhomefinder.com!