Former Mining Town Wrestles With Organic Tourism

The sun came up over Escucha al Monte the same way it had for who knew how long. It came up the same as it had before the town ever existed, when the site was only a patch of wild meadow, accented by steep granite cliffs, where Vulcan Creek tumbled out of Carne Canyon wandering to the muddy Tabeguache River to west. Butter Lake dominated the village scene. This was not some reservoir compliments of the Corps of Engineers and the Chamber of Commerce, but the real deal compliments of the relentless river.

The steep and lonesome trail up to Camp Hollow and the played out Cuckhold Mine

Everything in the town focused on that body of water, including the small hospital, where newborns and those on the way out of it could enjoy the best views. They could see the Super Whosit (still family owned and operated, featuring hard wood floors and employees who had worked there for thirty years. They could gaze into the picture window at Flora’s Coiffures and almost taste the conversation there. Flora’s seven children had run off back east somewhere and become lawyers. They rarely visited Escucha.

The first residents fished these streams and rivers and hunted deer and elk near a large stand of ponderosa that bordered the small park to the east. Their summer lodges stood where the sun hit the canyon walls. Dismantled every November they were hauled down valley to the confluence of the Kinnick-Kinnick River, southwest to Uncompromiso Creek and the more tolerable winter climate. In later years miners would walk that stretch up to the Camp Hollow or the more remote Cuckhold Mine. Tourists hoof it today.

At one point in the town’s bawdy history there had been 22 brothels and at least 40 places to buy a glass of whiskey. With the mines shut down the former red light district featured summer melodramas in the remodeled saloons and carpetbagger real estate in the parlors. False front emporiums sold mindless souvenirs in plastic and glass and T-shirts that read Escucha Mucha, Budweiser and Harley-Davidson. The aroma of Real Texas barbecue was everywhere even though this wasn’t Texas, at least in the winter. The old train depot was now a bed and breakfast. A cell phone outlet sat where the old coal yard had been. The churches outnumbered the public houses two to one.

Old Escucha, site for a multi-million dollar resort and golf course on the edge of town.

But that’s only downtown. Uptown, farther into the afternoon shadows and on the other side of Vulcan Creek and up on the Lake the real Escucha flourished. It is comprised of the fire house, the aforementioned Whosit Market, two junk yards, Red’s Gravy Heaven, the Hibernian-Croatian Club, a feed store, several outdoor clothing stores, a bookstore, the bank, an auto parts store, with small cabins and house trailers wedged in between. The town’s bookends were city hall and the two-room offices of the Escucha Star, the county’s only award-winning weekly newspaper.

A giant American flag, 1000 feet by 800 feet fluttered high above the Happy Face Mortuary while another banner of red, white and blue waved above the bank. The second one is smaller and taken in every night by an honor guard of loam officers under the watchful eye of Attila II, the town’s “slower” boy.  Only last week the bankers had decided to invest in a new flag, bigger than the one that flew above Happy Face.

Out along the highway where Barbie’s Buffalo Ranch and Massage meets Dead Angel Gorge, which drops off an amazing 1390 feet according the Bureau of Survey and Management, stands the real tourist attraction, The Giant Dinosaur Turd. The 200 million year-old reptilian loaf, an archeological treasure dating back to the Triassic Epoch now featured ten foot fences and more than 300 little brown and white Forest Service signs, in over 20 languages, meant to inform and direct traffic.

Despite all the trappings, the dinosaur turd is real, having been discovered by students from the Normal School of Mimes, while out picking wildflowers in 1893.

Before that everyone in Escucha thought the large brownish object was part of a meteor or tailings pile. Some thought it had been a landfill for the nearby Ute village. Nobody ever guessed it was dinosaur dropping(s). Although the discovery was a blessing to the local economy, the situation had now threatened to get way out of hand since the giant turd was really not so giant. It was eroding thanks to the throngs of pedestrian traffic that visited the place in the summer.

Executive Offices of the Giant Dinosaur Turd in Escucha

“We had almost as many people walking along the observation trails last year as they had at Mount Rushmore,” bragged Shivaree Tripe, number two person at the local chamber of commerce.

These trails, or Poop Decks, as the residents of Escucha called them, were built by slave labor compliments of the Forest Service and the state correctional institute in Pinkyville. Admission ($10 for adults. Children and seniors $15) goes toward free weights, dirty movies and other tools of rehabilitation at the prison. About half the money is spent on the extensive daily maintenance of The Lizard Turd, aka The Golden Goose.

Enthusiasts are warned that many of these crowded walkways and primitive passages become slick in the rain and have no guard rails. Each year there are accidents but usually no fatalities due to the presence of rescue workers with ropes, sirens, pulleys and hats that say “Rescue Me”.

“The incredible number of visitors has permanently taxed our resources,” flinched Tripe. The body heat from all these people, many of them fossils in their own right, has caused the giant turd to melt, even though it was considered petrified. Some days, after a particularly brutal assault by RVers, tour bus inmates and people who saw the four-color brochure, an annoying odor rises from the vicinity of this monument to dinosaur regularity, the largest of its type anywhere on the planet and most likely the solar system.”

A multi-million dollar Tourist Village is in the planning stages featuring theme gift shops, swank eateries, a five-star hotel, spa and golf course within spitting distance of the natural landmark. The destination resort, three miles up Snow Monkey Pass, will be bookmarked by two scenic viewing areas and a 40-foot television screen broadcasting photos of the area 24-hours a day.

“If we could get these bastards to visit the Giant Turd in January and February that would be something to brag on!” said Tripe, “You can be sure I’ll be pushing my dome project at the next economic development meeting. There are tons of federal grants for just this kind of thing.”

– Kevin Haley