Moffat, Colorado

At one point in the 1870's, Moffat had several thousand residents and was at the center of a trade and freight network that made Moffat a major mining and stockyards hub for southern Colorado. When it came time to settle on a city as the capital of the new state of Colorado, Moffat came in second in the voting, losing out to Denver. Moffat saw the mines peter out and then most of the agricultural business moved west after the federal government built a water diversion system to carry water from the north half of the San Luis Valley across the central divide and into the lower Rio Grande (the US lost a water suit with Mexico and had to make up the shortfall somehow, and they wouldn't take back the water rights already being used by farmers in the Rio Grande drainage - this is actually a very long story with lots of complications and is still causing problems down south - the water debt has since been erased but the local folks have not been given back access to the local water).

As usual, I didn't take photos of the new stuff, just the historic stuff. Moffat seems like a quiet little town in the heart of the San Luis Valley, meaning that it's easy to get from here to the mountains, forests and other wilderness adventure stuff that really attracts people like me...