COLONA COUNTY LINE

     I guess this column could be called The View From Colona, as the editor suggested, or Storm King Reflections or some such nonsense, but it’s not. It’s called Colona County Line since this lovely little turn in the road is right smack on the border of Montrose and Ouray Counties. It might have been called From the Front Porch or better yet, From the Throne, so consider yourself fortunate.
That established, let’s go on.
Bordered by Log Hill Mesa, the Uncompahgre River and Buckhorn, Colona was established as a ranching and logging center as well as a stop along the railroad. Since it’s not really a town (according to the Division of Transportation) no specific founding dates or ribbon cuttings are applicable. It came to be sometime between 1888 and 1922, OK?
Colona County Line sounds kind of Johnny Cashesque, don’t you think? Maybe The New Yorker will want to publish this piece (esque and all).
Saturday Morning Cowboy Movies
Sometimes I think Colona is the most peaceful spot on earth. From my porch I see pastures, pinon covered adobe hills and the white San Juans to the distant south. At night there are a million stars and a resident herd elk graze across the road. The back streets and alleys are a treasure filled with discarded pieces of life. A few nights back a good size black bear wandered down by the old packing house…right there on the main street. The traffic noise from nearby Highway 550 is no problem. Just turn up the music and it goes away.
The Ranching Museum is here as well, a fine collection of relics and antiques from the golden age of cattle raising. Will it someday be surrounded by suburbs to nowhere inhabited by people who don’t give a hoot about ranching? Ah, the novelty of it all. A cowboy clothing boutique? Maybe a cowboy theme park? Hey pard, want to ride the nice horsy? Where will all the ranching families go after they sell off their land? I hear Wyoming is nice.
Big plans here for more houses and people to live inside them. Right now developers are busy sprucing up the place to make it just right for the newcomers. They are painting and landscaping. Even the gravel is getting a facelift. Savior faire, mo fos. Maybe we will all be smack in the middle of a 1950s cowboy movie with good guys and bad guys shooting at each other from across the highway. Maybe we’ll have real Indians and stage coaches and false fronts on the historic buildings, but I do not want to belabor the point.
Meet Me in Colona, Mona
It is easy enough to see why anyone would be exited at the prospect of writing a column about Colona, but after looking around I realized that very little is actually going on. The news is scant, but not scandalous. The pace is chronically minimal so I will have to be innovative (make things up) as I go. If there was a newspaper here the front page stories would probably read Dog Crosses Road or Commuter Parking Lot Set For Expansion. One pretty much has to drive to Montrose or Ridgway to buy toothpaste. If it weren’t for the gas pumps at Colona Store a person could be stranded here for all eternity, but that might not be so bad.
Next Time: Should Colona de designated a Nuclear Free Zone?