Uncovering Colorado: Buena Vista
Alan Gionet visits Buena Vista as a community journalist and takes an in-depth look in this special program about the town, its people and things that matter to them.
Along the Arkansas River Buena Vista is a home for the 3,000 or so people who live there and the kind of Colorado place those who visit think, "I'd like to make my home there."
In recent years, the population has surged, the downtown has filled in what used to be empty storefronts and expanded. Housing prices have risen along with demand. There are unsettled questions about water use.
That has brought a lot of thinking about what the town wants to be. Is tourism a good thing?
"I ask myself that question all the time, it's something I struggle with, because there is such a thing as over-tourism and loving something to death," said Mike Kissack, president of the Arkansas River Outfitters Association and owner of a rafting company.
He added, "and I think it can always be a good thing if done responsibly."
"People don't move to a place like BV if they don't want to live in a small town," said Hannah Harn, editor of the Chaffee County Times.
The paper keeps track of important issues like housing and water use and education.
There are significant questions about all of it. But people she's found have a level of personal investment in the community. There's pride and a couple of laughs about the phrase applied to Buena Vista's climate being in a "Banana Belt" of relatively warm weather for the mountains, even at 7,900 feet.
"It's really appropriate until like Oct. 3," joked Harn.
Housing pressures have brought innovation, like the Fading West company, which has a factory building homes in 10 days. It started with an attempt to build affordable housing, but the developers quickly realized building on-site was expensive. Now Fading West gets calls all the time from other communities asking if they can come to their town.
"We believe you could have 10 of these factories scattered in the Front Range and other mountain towns and they would be full all year long making homes," said Eric Schaefer, chief business development officer for Fading West.
The town is a mecca of water sports in the summer, with a whitewater park just off downtown created when brother and sister pro kayakers saw potential and helped the town develop the area while creating a development called South Main nearby.
"It really started moving when South Main came in and we got a lot of young people. You need young people. But, we see change," said Suzy Kelly who helps at the Buena Vista Heritage Museum.
Kelly and her family own a big ranch on the outskirts of town that was first homesteaded in the 1800s.
They still raise cattle and depend on old water rights that help to bring water onto their land as it runs down off 14,000-foot Mount Princeton.
"I'm actually eighth-generation Colorado. Our kids are sixth generation Chaffee County," said Ashleigh Cogan, who works on the ranch. She and her husband are raising children and working outdoors.
"That's worth everything. I guarantee we make a small portion of what all our friends make. But we get to do life together as a family and invite our friends in for that," she said.