Take the COCO to SOCO A Train Story Connecting Main Street
Mountain Main Street Connections by Richard Arnold Beattie
“The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.” William H. Whyte
From Main Street and 5th Avenue in Westcliffe I look out from my studio perch. Looking Northwest I can see the Collegiate Mountain range which rises above the communities I serve in Salida, Poncha Springs and Bunea Vista. When I walk across our mountain chalet and walk onto my deck, I see down south, the Sangre de Cristos to this side of Music Mountain and Cuchara’s Mountains. Walsenburg, LaVita and West to Alamosa and the Sand Dunes are in view. In between are communities I serve, and we are all connected by car or bus and what had been seasonal and tourist economies are communities bolstered by Community building, through Recreation, Education, Arts and Media, Transportation, and Entrepreneurship.
A Tale of Four Main Streets
Between Canon City and Salida there is the iconic Highway 50. The Arkansas River connects these two places through a river canon. Bus-Stang, a C-Dot led bus, equipped with internet, coach seating, and commuter friendly amenities that take riders to transportation hubs and Main Streets around the state. Rural transportation such as Mountain Valley Transit cross paths at the old train depot in Walsenburg to the Town Center in Alamosa and bus stops in smaller communities along the way. With Walsenburg an hour south of where my office is, Canon City and hour North, Salida an hour North West and Pueblo an hour South, I recognize that each of these towns and cities are interconnected by their unique community, recreational, educational, arts, and entrepreneurial and vocational offerings that should be interconnected through a vibrant transit system.
A Main Street Economy
There is only one economic season in several places in the Heart of the Rockies to the Sand Dunes and the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan range. Many towns were originally agriculture and ranching. They were self-sufficient entities, and many were cut off from outside tourists with dirt roads. The economy ran like Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Main Street consisted of shops, schools, a library, newspaper/radio station, parks, professional offices and in many cases realtors. The grocer, butcher, cafés and motel with a liquor store, a gas station/repair shop doctor and a funeral home were all that was needed. Laborers came to you, doing their paperwork of a three-part estimate and invoice from a clipboard that hung in the pickup truck between the driver’s seat and passenger. Some towns have a taxi service that you could call. A Chamber of Commerce wasn’t necessary, and a tourism board would have been over-kill! Now the season runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Texas and Oklahoma license plates overruled the Colorado plates that are seen on Main Street from October through April, and when the tourists come back are shocked to find that their cabins have water damage from snowmelt or a burst pipe.
Main Street Connections
Main Street America held a webinar for interconnectivity of communities this week. There were some really good ideas for my clients and the communities that I serve. We are connected by highways, through the automobile, and through the internet, community radio and in a few cases rural and urban transit. Community building through recreation, education, the arts, transportation and entrepreneurship or employment are reasons to connect our Main Streets. I use the words “Main Street,” as that center of the town where community comes together to live, work and be in community. The reasons for interconnectivity are numerous, as far as Home, Work and Community are concerned. Most people take rural transportation to another community mainly for shopping. Others take it for medical appointments. Even though Alamosa may have some great educational resources for higher education than Salida, not too many people take the bus to explore college opportunity. In other ways a few people take public transit for recreational opportunities. These include hiking, biking and only occasionally, FlingGolf. I never once met anyone who took a bus to the bowling alley! One of the things that I would like to explore is to talk to major employers in some towns to offer their commuting workers to be on the clock if they start commuting by bus at least once a week! Another Main Street Connection is communications. Community Radio can be a good way to connect Main Street communities. And now the leagcy of the Polis Admisistration is a railway from Fort Collins to Pueblo.
Coco to Soco
Media-Arts Innovation Network (MAIN) is coming to Walsenburg. Walsenburg is 30 minutes south of Pueblo Central Station. Coco stands for the Colorado Connection. Bustang and Rural Transit options need to connect people to the galleries, studios, theaters and film studios that line the new CREATE Trail on I-25 from Pueblo to Raton, New Mexico by the way of Walsenburg, Trinidad and out to LaVeta, Lathrop State Park and the San Luis Valley and up to Taos, New Mexico. They call it the COEXICO Arts Coridor. With Mike Peters at the Fox Theater in Walsenburg, the Colorado Chapter of the Leadon Family Foundation and the proposed MAIN Center in Walsenburg, the connections are numerous. Music Festivals from Westcliffe to Raton, bring international talent and on the Eastern Plains at the Shore Arts Center in Lamar, the legendary Highway 50, is lines with Art Centers from The Shore Arts Center in Lamar, east to Kansas, West to Pueblo and the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, Fremont Center for the Arts in Canon City and up to Salida at A Church and The Steam Plant. Then on the Western Slope to Montrose, Crested Butte and to Gunnison and Grand Junction.
Chicken Feed!
KHEN in Salida and KLZR in Westcliffe can share some programming through internet radio. And those communities that are served by Mountain Valley Transit can be connected with neighboring towns through internet and online radio. In the coming weeks RAB, Inc has begun to syndicate online radio feeds that will engage and connect the communities of Canon City, Salida, Bunea Vista, Cripple Creek, Poncha Springs, Saguache, Center, Monte Vista, Del Norte, Alamosa, and across to LaVeta and Walsenburg. We are calling the feed Mountain Valley Radio connecting the Heart of the Rockies to the Sand Dunes of Southern Colorado! My non-profit Sound Century digitizes classic concerts, radio programs like Sam Arnold’s “Food for Thought,” original and revival full musical theater including Louis Armstrong in Mardi Gras and new programming including Southern Colorado, Mountain Time Radio News. Stories and reports from the routes from travelers and drivers will be regular features that will be fed to community radio stations.
Public Affairs from Community Health and Human Services
BTR Breakthrough Radio, is also a leader in producing health and human service public service announcements for each community that we serve is a daunting task. Public Affairs interviews, genres of music and recreational opportunities for listeners in Fling Golf, Golf, Skiing, hiking and other participatory sports will be covered. We are connected in many ways. “Community happens peripherally,” as my friend Dick Jones wrote in his book “Walking the Same Ground.” Reflections of community often start on Main Street.
RABBITS
In the 1940s ad professionals put their agency brain trust together in creative, production and distribution connections to form what we now know as The AD Council. Now communications professional Richard Arnold Beattie will be writing, producing and distributing RAB-BITS for Health, Human Services, and News and Information Services for Southern Colorado Community Radio. From the multi-Addy Award Winning broadcast journalist, creative director and composer. "This has been a public service announcement from The Leadon Family Foundation of Colorado."
Our mission is to build strong community ties by sponsoring local organizations and events. We ensure funds stay in the community, supporting its unique needs and fostering resilience. Byond CREATE services, we are dedicated partners, deeply invested in our community's well-being and growth through it all.
To join the Colorado Chapter of the Leadon Family Foundation please email Richardbeattie809@gmail.com.