*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on July 15, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. U.S. Route 85 is a nearly 1,500-mile-long highway that runs through El Paso, Texas, to New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and through Fortuna,…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on July 8, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. There’s a tall, tall turtle in the Garden of the Gods, and I’d like to tell you a story about it. But…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on July 1, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. A few years ago, I was standing in Memorial Park in Manitou Springs when I noticed this enormous rock in the middle…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on June 24, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. Guts, smarts, and money. Those three things helped make the cog rail in Manitou Springs happen. The guts came from a Civil…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on June 17, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. Places are places to my 10-year-old daughter — she’ll often confuse cities with states. We’ll go to Leadville and she’ll ask when…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on June 10, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. I’m no geologist but I can’t help myself when I come across a pretty piece of pearly white quartz or a silver-flecked…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on June 3, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. Chipeta — often called “Queen of the Utes” — was nearly 70 when she joined in Colorado Springs’ 40th birthday party as…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on May 27, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. Some roads are too good to go away. Or maybe they’re too tough to die. Like the Midland. The Colorado Midland Railway was born…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on May 20, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. “They moved where?” I said to my wife. My in-laws built a house in Florence this past fall, about 40 miles south…
*Note: This audio essay first aired on KRCC (Colorado Springs’ NPR affiliate, 91.5 FM) on May 13, 2021. The link to the program is here; the audio file and the text from the essay are below. If history is the study of what came before, a mud print makes a fine artifact. Especially in the Spring. Winter’s last…