Reports from the Knowledge Labs about our recent findings, research topics, and interviews with lifestyle leaders who are creating their own futures.
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How to stimulate your own powers of foresight. Consider the following thought provokers. Ask yourself, in these categories what are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL thought for food: Electronics, Materials, Energy, Fossil, Nuclear, Alternative, Other, Manufacturing (techniques), Agriculture, Machinery and Equipment, Distribution, Transportation (Urban, Mass, Personal, Surface, Sea, Subsurface, Space), Communication (Printed, Spoken, Interactive, Media), Computers (Information, Knowledge, Storage & Retrieval, Design, Network Resources), Post-Cold War, Third World, Conflict (Local, Regional, Global), Arms Limitation, Undeclared Wars, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Governments (More/Less Power and Larger or Smaller Scale), Taxes, Isms: Nationalism, Regionalism, Protectionism, Populism, Cartels, Multinational Corporations, Balance of Trade, Third Party Payments, Regulations (OSHA, etc.) Environmental Impact, U.S. Prestige Abroad. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC Food for thought:
Labor Movements, Unemployment / Employment Cycles, Recession, Employment Patterns, Work Hours / Schedules, Fringe Benefits, Management Approaches, Accounting Policies, Productivity, Energy Costs, Balance of Payments, Inflation, Taxes, Rates of Real Growth, Distribution of Wealth, Capital Availability and Costs, Reliability of Forecasts, Raw Materials, Availability and Costs, Global versus National Economy, Market versus Planned Economies, Generations: Y, X, Boomers, Elderly, Urban vs. Rural Lifestyles, Affluent vs. Poor, Neighborhoods and Communities, Planned or Organic Growth.
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The Journal of 2020 Foresight
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Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Colorado’s Mother Lode: 17 Resort Communities to Fit Lifestyle Profiles
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“Jones has given us a life of William Clark that rescues him from the dusty pages of high school textbooks and more hagiographic biographies. His vocabulary and point of view are thoroughly modern: He refers to the widowed Clark as "an active single father" and he uses the fashionable term "borderlands" to describe what we used to call the "frontier." Above all, Jones allows us to see a familiar and even fusty figure in a wholly new if sometimes troubling light."
Jonathan Kirsch
DURANGO MOUNTAIN RESORT, Colorado. It’s impossible. Given the time and the territory we’d have to cover. So our Corps of Re-Discovery’s mission quickly became plotting a way of visiting as many resort locations on Grey Owl’s list as possible. We could check off three already: Durango, Pagosa Springs and Telluride. But there were plenty more throughout the state.
Journal of 2020 Foresight: The next morning we walked down two blocks to Mild to Wild's booth off of Main Street to board their bus and put in north of town.
Trailblazer: Local river guide, Brad, expertly guided us down the 2 and 3 rated rapids. This wasn’t his only gig. He guides on several rivers and planned to try it year 'round by getting passage to Australia and New Zealand.
Explorer: With a mountain man look of black hair and black bushy beard, he memorized and quizzed himself with our names.
Eagle: What a hustler. The father a family with us on our raft sold wave runners. Brad's interest perked up. For the several hours he tried to get samples -- shirts, hats, leads of equipment from him. "I'm planning to get into sales he said."
Pathfinder: We got into a water fight – fun for us, canned and scripted for them. We soaked another raft, whose guide was rafting his last trip. Brad barked the orders.
J2020F: He caught my attention when he told us he thought we were ready to surf. So we paddled back upriver to a hole. The turbulence sucked and pushed at the same time so we were trapped temporarily facing upriver as the back-wave swirled underneath us, like riding a bucking bronco.
Eagle: What’s the term they kept throwing around – “ducks?” We, all the rafters, kept our eyes pealed for the ducks - about 20 kayakers, shooting the rapids in and around us with their leader.
Explorer: Right. One “duck” kayaker dumped upside down and bobbed that way for a while. We maneuvered over to give him a platform for catching his breath while he righted is vessel and tried 3 or 4 times to get back in.
J2020F: Making up for early morning and slow train delays the day before, we practically ran to our SUV to head out to Hassle Free bike rentals for mountain biking adventures near the arena where Fiesta Days brought the rodeo to town.
J2020F: After biking, we changed and retraced our path back to the Bar D Chuckwagon for dinner and the show featuring aging Western singers full of themselves, yet somewhat entertaining.
Explorer: The following morning we checked out of our hotel, loaded up and hit the trail for Denver. Only stopping briefly when Trailblazer noticed the coordinates of Grey Owl’s geo-cache on his GPS.
Trailblazer: Stop. Turn in right here. Grey Owl’s Purgatory geo-cache listed three towns at different growth rates right here in this local area.
J2020F: In addition to Pagosa Springs, he listed three Innovation resort towns with potentially higher appreciation, lower prices, but longer time frame and higher risk. And, then a whole lot more.
Innovation:
Pagosa Springs -- Zip Code 81147 in Archuleta County Pagosa Sun
Next: Redstone Zip code: 81623—about 50 miles from Aspen in Crystal River Valley as shown on the map. Two others show up closer to Aspen -- Marble: Zip Code: 81623 -- 17 miles southwest of Aspen in where you stay at the Beaver Lake Lodge ; and Basalt: Zip Code: 81621 – in Eagle County and the Roaring Fork Valley near Aspen with news items available in the Aspen Times.
Turning to Early Growth, Grey Owl lists two more in addition to Durango:Zip codes: 81301, 02, 03—with inside information published by the Durango Herald: Minturn and Red Cliff. First, Minturn: Zip Code: 81645 --near Vail and Redcliff in Eagle County where you can find Population, Employment, Earnings and Personal Income Trends Second, Red Cliff: Zip Code: 81649 – in Eagle County, near Vail and Minturn where you can find Red Cliff demographics.
His list of Mid-Growth towns includes Telluride and four others.
Telluride:Zip Code: 81435 and local news source, the Telluride Daily Planet . Steamboat Springs: Zip Code: 80477, 87,88 in Routt County covered by the Steamboat Pilot.
Glenwood Springs: Zip Code: 81601, 02 and the Glenwood Springs Post Independent Next to last of the mid-growth towns is Beaver Creek: Zip Code: 81620 / Avon near Vail (Vail Resorts) and chronicled in the Beaver Creek Media Guide. Finally, Crested Butte: Zip Code: 81224, 25 – in Gunnison County and its chamber of commerce. Includes the planning department’s Code of the West
The final five make up the Late Growth, Early Maturity list.
Copper Mountain:Zip Code: 80443 -- Summit Daily News. Breckenridge: Zip Code: 80424—also the Summit Daily News. Keystone—map of surrounding mountain resorts Zip Code: 80435 – the third town covered by the Summit Daily News. Boulder: Zip Code: 80301, 02, 03, 04, 09 -- covered not by the Summit Daily News, but by three online news sources: Boulder News / The Daily Camera, the Boulder County Business Report and the Boulders Weekly. And, finally the fifth on the list, Snowmass: Zip Code: 81654 – where you can read all about it in the Snowmass Village Sun.
J2020F: Anything else?
Trailblazer: A quote attributed to Russell Means:
"I was standing by a still pond one day with an elder from my nation, Lakota. He said, "Pick up a rock.
Throw it in the water." So I threw that rock in the water.
He said, "That rock is your heart, and that first ring is your immediate family, the second is your extended family, and the third is your community.
Fourth ring is your nation, fifth is your world.
The next ring is the universe, and the outer ring is infinity."
That's all he said.
In an oral society, you have to really listen.
I saw that rock as my heart and what comes out from that heart affects infinity.
So if I'm going to affect something, then I want to be healthy while I'm affecting it."
J2020F: Which reminds me. You said yesterday a Ute saved Father Escalante’s life. Did the Utes begin to see the writing on the wall when the miners invaded their traditional Rocky Mountain hunting grounds?
Pathfinder: Or, was it that they figured that the white men weren’t a threat?
Eagle: No and Yes. They had seen he white men drive their old enemies, Black Kettle’s tribe, the Cheyenne from the Colorado plains – a vast territory in western Kansas and eastern Colorado that had been guaranteed to the Cheyenne under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Some Ute warriors had even joined the Rope Thrower, Kit Carson, in the white men's war against the Navahos.
Explorer: So, they believed the whites were their allies.
Eagle: And, according to Brown, they enjoyed trading in Denver to exchange buffalo hides for gaudy stuff in the stores.
J2020F: But, I’ve got to believe as the grass-hopping miners multiplied year after year, they changed their opinion, right?
Trailblazer: I recall that sometime – maybe in 1863 – John Evans, governor of the Colorado Territory and other officials came the San Juan Mountains to meet with Ouray the Arrow and nine chiefs of the Utes. This was during the two-year period called the Colorado War from 1863-65 centered on the eastern plains of Colorado.
Eagle: Ah yes, the first of several slippery-sloped worded treaties crafted to take advantage of the Indians – followed by photo ops in Washington D.C. Using the Continental Divide as the boundary the Whites got all land to the east and the Utes kept all lands to the west.
J2020F: Slippery slope?
Eagle: Well here was the deal in a nutshell, according to Brown: “In exchange for ten thousand dollars' worth of goods and ten thousand dollars' worth of provisions to be distributed annually for ten years, the Utes agreed to relinquish mineral rights to all parts of their territory, and they promised not to molest any citizen of the United States who might come into their mountains to dig.”
Explorer: Essentially, the US negotiated for a deal similar to the one given the Eastern Colorado plains tribes in 1861, right?
J2020F: What was that agreement all about?
Explorer: Basically, the Arapaho and Cheyenne agreed to give up most their areas of the plains to white settlement. But they were allowed to live in their larger traditional areas, so long as they could tolerate the settlers.
Pathfinder: Today the Cheyenne former territory includes the cities of Fort Collins, situated on the Cache la Poudre River, Denver and 1,500 Arapaho camped on the future site of Denver.
J2020F: The Cache la Poudre – wasn’t that a key point on the overland trail – a point through which Mark Twain passed on the Butterfield Stage to Carson City, Nevada?
Pathfinder: He had a lot to say about Julesburg in the upper right hand corner of Colorado, about how the outlaw Slade forced gunfight with the founder and stage agent, Jules.
Trailblazer: Given everything we know already about the Indian Wars and Military Campaigns in full swing throughout the West the treaty lasted for about five minutes, right?
Eagle: No for about five years.
Explorer: By 1865 – no tribe remained on the plains east of Denver, following the Sand Creek Massacre led by John Chivington, authorized by John Evans.
Eagle: Chivington kills almost 150 surrendered Cheyenne and Arapaho camped 40 miles from Fort Lyon after declaring peace at the fort. So two tribes down, one to go.
J2020F: Let me guess, the white men of Colorado decided they had let the Utes keep too much land.
Eagle: Jackpot. Brown says, “Through political pressures they persuaded the Indian Bureau that the Utes were a constant nuisance -- wandering everywhere, visiting towns and mining camps, and stealing livestock from settlers. They said they wanted the Ute placed on a reservation with well-defined lines, but what they truly wanted was more Ute land."
Pathfinder: So all of this is taking place some time around 1868, right?
Eagle: Right – at the time of the press conference in Washington D.C. – when Ouray turned the tables on the Whites, including Kit Carson, who had commanded Colorado’s Fort Garland from l866 to 1867.
J2020F: How so?
Eagle: Brown describes the event, occurring near the end of President Andrew Johnson’s term as the Great Father as: "Early in 1868, with a great deal of fanfare, the Indian Bureau invited Ouray, Nicaagat (Jack), and eight other chiefs to Washington, Rope Thrower Carson accompanied them as a trusted friend and advisor.”
J2020F: I imagine they were wined and dined to soften them up.
Eagle: They got the full treatment. “In Washington they were quartered in a fine hotel, served excellent meals, and given an abundance of tobacco, candy, and medals.” And, then came the old divide-and-conquer routine.
Trailblazer: What do you mean?
Eagle: Brown says, “When the time came for treaty making, the official insisted that one of the visiting chiefs must accept responsibility for all seven bands represented.” And, they fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Explorer: What happened next?
Eagle: “Ouray the Arrow was the unanimous choice for chief of all the Utes. He was half-Apache, half-Uncompahgre Ute, a handsome, round-faced, sharp-eyed Indian who could speak English and Spanish as fluently as the two Indian tongues he knew.”
J2020F: Doesn’t sound like your ignorant savage stereotype of the times.
Eagle: He knew more than he let on. Brown says, “When the land-hungry politicians tried to put him on the defensive, Ouray was sophisticated enough to present the Utes' case to newspaper reporters."
J2020F: In what way?
Eagle: Ouray turned out to be an elegant speaker. Brown quotes him as telling the reporters: " 'the agreement an Indian makes to a United States Treaty,' he said, 'is like the agreement a buffalo makes with his hunters when pierced with arrows. All he can do is lie down and give in.' “
Pathfinder: So he wasn’t easily fooled.
Eagle: No he didn’t fall for “their bright-tinted maps and unctuous phraseology about boundary lines. Instead of accepting a small corner of western Colorado, he held out for sixteen million acres of western slope forests and meadows, considerably less territory than his people and claimed before, but considerably more than the Colorado politicians wanted them to have.”
Explorer: Then, what did he fall for?
Eagle: Two agencies were to be established, one at Los Pinos for the Uncompahgres and other southern bands, one on White River for the northern bands.
Pathfinder: Why did he settle for that bargain?
Eagle: Well, Ouray also demanded the inclusion of certain protective clauses in the new treaty.
Explorer: Like words meant to keep miners and settlers off the Ute reservations?
Eagle: Brown says, "According to the treaty, no unauthorized white men would 'ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in' the territory assigned to the Utes.”
J2020F: So then it was settled.
Eagle: Not quite. “In spite of this restriction, the miners continued to trespass. Among them was Frederick W. Pitkin, (later a county named after him with the county seat in Aspen) a New England Yankee who ventured into the San Juan Mountains and made a quick fortune mining silver.”
Explorer: Pitkin, huh? I read that in 1872 Pitkin became a leading advocate among owners of wealthy mining interests who wanted to add the San Juan area -- one fourth of the Ute reservation -- to Colorado Territory.
Eagle: That’s right, according to Brown. And, “bowing to the miners' wishes, the Indian Bureau sent out a special commission headed by Felix R. Brunot to negotiate with the Utes for cession of this land. At Los Pinos agency in September, 1873, Brunot's commission met with Ouray and representatives of the seven Ute nations."
J2020F: What did they fall for this time?
Eagle: Well, "Brunot told the chiefs that the Great Father (now Ulysses S. Grant) had asked him to come and talk to them about giving up some of their reservation land. He assured them that he did not want the land for himself, and had not come to tell them what to do, but to hear what they had to say about the matter.”
Explorer: Seems like a great opening gambit. But, there’s got to be more, right?
Eagle: He went on, “'It is much better sometimes to do what does not please us just now,' Brunot counseled, 'if we think it will be best for our children.' “
J2020F: Oh that old appeal to the best interests of your children tactic.
Eagle: Right.
Explorer: I’m sure that the chiefs wanted to know how it would benefit their children if they gave up their land.
Eagle: They did: “Brunot explained that the government would set aside a large sum of money for the Utes, and each year the tribe would be paid interest from it for the ceded land. 'I do not like the interest part of the agreement,' Ouray declared.”
Pathfinder: So. Ouray didn’t sell out?
Explorer: Not at first, right?
Eagle: Right. Brown says Ouray told Brunot that, “'I would rather have the money in the bank.' He then complained because the government had not kept its treaty promise to remove white men who were found trespassing on the Ute reservation."
J2020F: Good point. So, Ouray backed Brunot in a corner.
Eagle: Well not exactly, "Brunot replied frankly that if the government tried to drive the miners out, this would bring on war, and the Utes would lose their land without receiving any pay for it. 'The best thing that can be done,' he said, 'if you can spare these mountains, is to sell them, and to have something coming in every year.'”
Trailblazer: Now, there’s a negotiator who drives a hard bargain.
Explorer: How did Ouray respond?
Eagle: “'The miners care very little about the government and do not obey the laws,' Ouray agreed. 'They say they do not care about the government. It is a long way off in the States, and they say the man who comes to make the treaty will go off to the States, and it will all be as they want it.' “
J2020F: So, it seems like both sides agreed on the situational assessment.
Eagle: Yes. Brown says “'Suppose you sell the mountains,' Brunot continued, 'and if there is no gold in them, then it would be a benefit to you. The Utes get the pay for them and the Americans would stay away. But suppose there are mines there, it will not stop the trouble. We could not keep the people away.' "
Trailblazer: You’re saying Brunot verified that the Great Father lacked the power to dictate the actions of the locals?
Eagle: That’s exactly what Ouray wanted to know: " 'Why cannot you stop them?' Ouray demanded. 'Is not the government strong enough to keep its agreement with us?' 'I would like to stop them,' Brunot said, 'but Ouray knows it is hard to do.'”
Pathfinder: So talks must have broken off right then and there. What did Ouray do?
Eagle: “Ouray said he was willing to sell the mountains, but not all the fine hunting land around them. 'The whites can go and take the gold and come out again. We do not want them to build houses there.'”
Trailblazer: Now that compromise sounds reasonable.
Eagle: But, “Brunot replied that he did not believe this could be done. There was no way to force the miners to leave Ute territory once they had come and dug their mines there.
J2020F: So the talks hit an impasse?
Eagle: Well, Brunot offered a teaser: “ 'I will ask the Great Father to drive the miners away,' he promised, 'but a thousand other men will tell him to let them alone. Perhaps he will do as I say, perhaps not.' “
Pathfinder: Earlier you said Ouray didn’t sell out. So they walked out, right?
Eagle: No. Brown says that, “After seven days of discussions, the chiefs agreed to accept the government's offer of twenty-five thousand dollars a year for the four million acres of treasure."
Pathfinder: So Ouray must have been one of them, the leader among chiefs, right?
Eagle: Correct. "As a bonus, Ouray was to receive a salary of one thousand dollars a year for ten years, 'or so long as he shall remain head chief of the Utes and at peace with the United States.' Thus did Ouray become a part of the establishment, motivated to preserve the status quo.”
J2020F: And, today the Ute Reservations in Colorado are miniscule compared to their earlier years.
Pathfinder: And we know that the Brunot Treaty negotiated with the Utes ceded the area to U.S. and by 1873 more than 1500 mining claims had been registered.
Explorer: And, as our bus driver told us, Silverton as a town was plotted in a year later 1874, but in the early days Silverton was hard to reach.
Trailblazer: With the railroad coming in 1882, getting supplies to Silverton was less of a problem. In less than three decades, as Brunot had pointed out to Ouray, mining hit its peak between 1900 and 1912 when San Juan County's population swelled to 5,000 people.
J2020F: Well our work was cut out for us. So many towns to visit. So little time. We left Durango and Silverton. Next stop, Telluride and Ouray on the road to meet Finnmark, the leader of the original Colorado Expedition.
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Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:06 AM
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