Along the Colorado River: Where community blossoms and the economy grows

Editor’s note: After taking inventory of Aspen’s embattled community, this next chapter of the “In Search of Community” series from Aspen Journalism looks forward at municipalities along the Colorado River. These communities house much of the upper Roaring Fork Valley workforce, commuters who may one day choose “better jobs, closer to home,” which is the tagline of an economic development initiative that may dramatically change patterns of commerce and culture throughout the region. This story is presented by the Aspen Daily News in two parts, running March 24 and March 31.

As workers from the Aspen community have incrementally been pushed downvalley over the decades by a tsunami of surging real estate prices and an erosion of accessible housing, seeds of community have taken root elsewhere, finding niches in which to blossom.

These places may be little known to much of the upper Roaring Fork Valley, but for so many who make its economy hum, it’s where they own homes, raise families, build dreams, struggle with life, and rush back and forth for employment each workday on congested highways. These communities are humble, mostly affordable, individuated by their unique characters, and yet cohesive in their diversity. Few second homes or short-term rentals undermine neighborhoods that are alive with families.

It was three of these communities — New Castle, Silt and Rifle — to which I traveled recently, taking a Roaring Fork Transportation Authority bus to the end of the line in a search of thriving communities and new economic prospects.

At 7:15 a.m., I climbed aboard the big blue bus in Basalt to start my daylong field trip. I was surprised to find more than a dozen passengers, most of whom were sleeping in the dim half-light of a January morning — the night shift.

The bus picked up speed down Two Rivers Road where the driver swerved around a small herd of mule deer. Going against a flood of upvalley commuters in a double flow of headlights, we soon reached the 27th Street transfer station in Glenwood Springs, where the Grand Hogback bus loaded and maneuvered down Grand Avenue. Merging onto Interstate 70 in West Glenwood, the bus motored 10 miles west to the New Castle exit. I got off at the downtown stop on an empty, quiet street with low storefronts stretching in both directions. As the bus pulled away, I realized I had stepped into rural western Colorado.

Alicia Gresley was to be my guide. She called and apologized for being late, explaining that she was held up by a highway wreck slowing traffic on the drive over from her home in Rifle, where she serves on the City Council. Gresley also heads up the Colorado River Valley Economic Development Partnership, a nonprofit that assists existing small businesses and encourages new businesses to locate in western Garfield County. The idea, she later said, is to provide smart growth opportunities for entrepreneurs and generate new options for local workers who call the Colorado River Valley home.

Gresley is energetic, a perfect fit for her role. She said that “Better jobs, closer to home” is the slogan that signals a potential shift in the regional workforce. If Gresley is successful, workers will have greater choice between the commuter rigors of Highway 82 and a diversity of local jobs in communities where most of them live. This could portend a boon for Colorado River communities and a challenge to the high-demand service economy of Aspen and Snowmass Village.

Gresley took me to Colorado Drifters Coffee and Fly Fishing, a quaint New Castle coffee shop run by Kyla Hemelt, who has created a warm, homey atmosphere of welcoming smiles, reasonable pricing and a laid-back vibe without attitude or pretense. The cafe doubles as a fishing and fly shop, reflecting Hemelt’s love for the Colorado River, on the banks of which she lives with her husband and their two young children.

Parents and kids welcome

Hemelt opened Drifters in the summer of 2021, after she and her family moved from Golden, where Hemelt had been a school teacher for 14 years. “I grew up in Gunnison,” she said, “and wanted to get back to the Western Slope for the river lifestyle and the small-town vibe for my family.”

Drifters is all about community, a place to gather. “When we moved here,” recalled Hemelt, “there were no coffee shops, no fly shops. There really wasn’t much. This space was vacant for about two years, and multiple spaces were empty up and down the street. We had this crazy idea to start a business with no business background.”

Hemelt had built a business plan with another partner, whom she bought out in six months. “I was really nervous about how we would be received here because there is this old-school mentality about keeping things the way they are and not wanting change,” she said. “Overall, we’ve been very welcomed. People are extremely friendly, and the younger families really want a place to go and bring their kids and be social and not drive to other towns.”

“We have a gazillion events,” said Hemelt, whose fly shop doubles as a toy room where kids play while parents gather and chat. “I’m kind of a party planner as well.” There are open-mic nights the first Thursday of every month, mostly featuring local artists. Trivia nights, held twice a month, always have a waiting list. Drifters has become a hub that spawns a homespun community.

Before dropping in at New Castle Town Hall, Gresley described her origins in Perth, Australia. Her dual U.S. citizenship comes from her American father, who was a Seabee in the U.S. Navy stationed in northwest Australia, where he met Gresley’s Australian mother. In 2005, on her third trip to the United States as a young backpacker, Gresley rode Amtrak to Glenwood Springs and decided to stay in the region. She landed a job at Vail that included housing. She worked winters for Vail Resorts and summers for a rafting company. Gresley eventually created her own role doing business development for the lodging sector in Eagle County where she worked to increase the number of second-home owners offering their properties as short-term rentals.

Ten years after settling in Colorado, she met her husband, who grew up in Basalt. The couple moved to Rifle where they are raising two children.

“For two years, I did the commute to Avon,” said Gresley, “every day, five days a week. The pandemic made me work remotely from home, which had a silver lining: I was able to spend time with my first child. It was then I became more connected to the Rifle community and wanted to get more involved.”

Gresley ran for council and won a seat in 2021. “I wanted to be a voice for families like us,” she said. “Now I really appreciate what goes into running a town in a small community.”

Leaving her job in Avon — and the commute — in 2022, Gresley has dedicated herself to local government and economic growth, for which she demonstrates a deep passion. She also created her own consulting business, On Mountain Time, which she calls a state of mind. “Time is our most precious resource,” she said, “and it’s finite, especially when we spend a lot of time working for somebody else.

“My first goal is to provide resources for small businesses, especially women-run businesses. I found that during the pandemic, a lot of women had to get creative, many having been laid off and doing home schooling. Many women I talked to started up businesses to earn an income for their families. They had a passion but didn’t have the business side of it. How do you turn something that you’re good at into a business and make it work?”

This is where Gresley shines.

The view from New Castle

We continued to town hall where we met Dave Reynolds, New Castle’s town administrator, and Reynolds’ assistant, Rochelle Firth. Reynolds has lived in New Castle for seven years and has been in his job for six. The role that enlivened a personal mission to build community.

“When I came to this area long ago, I searched up and down 82 and I-70, and I wound up here and just fell in love with it right away,” he said. “It just felt like a family community where you would be happy to raise kids.”

As town administrator, Reynolds is compelled to maintain the attractive first impression that persuaded him to make his home here. 

“Our intention is in giving back to our community and keeping this a comfortable place where people can raise their families,” he said. “We recognize that we have a certain charm and character, and our goal is to maintain that. What we care about here is keeping that family lifestyle, that charm we have.

“Most people have only the I-70 view of New Castle, and they don’t realize that we’re a town of about 5,200, with about 1,500 households. These are primary homes, with families, with people raising their kiddos, and it’s a great place to do it.”

Community is fostered in New Castle in part by an active social calendar put together by an ambitious recreation department. “We have a full year of events,” Reynolds said, “and sports go year-round. And we’re doing it in cooperation with our neighbors, so our leagues include towns from up and down the valley, and from outside the valley. We have arts, crafts and enrichment programs that are held almost every day.”

Such positive energy pulls in families and attracts outside interest. “We have open tracts of land owned by developers who are interested in bringing in more housing,” Reynolds said. “Growth is not our goal, but we know it is inevitable, and we accept it, but the goal is to maintain our charm. People pick this fun little place to live, where the parks, the trails and the schools are amazing.”

Spread out north of Main Street are quiet, attractive neighborhoods connected to town by an extensive trail system that includes single-track mountain bike and hiking trails and cross-country skiing. Farther north are bucolic valleys where creeks flow down from the Flat Tops, the second-largest designated wilderness area in Colorado, at 235,214 acres. Main Elk Creek is home to limestone sport-climbing crags that have helped put this region on the international climber’s map.

Like much of the Colorado River Valley, New Castle has grown significantly over the past two decades. The town’s population rose from about 2,000 residents in 2000 to 4,518 in 2010 and 4,923 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census, while the number of housing units followed a similar trajectory increasing from 746 in 2000 to 1,893 in 2020. Commercial developments include the 18-hole Lakota Canyon Golf Course, which opened for play in 2004. The area is rich with both small-town character and the likelihood of continued residential growth.

“I grew up here,” said Firth, “and now I live in Parachute, a 45-minute commute. Coming back here, you go to the grocery store and everyone knows you. I love it here for the small-town charm. The mayor and council are at every event. They are involved.”

Reynolds said he appreciates a sense of regionalism that links the Colorado River Valley through collaborative-minded municipalities. 

“We have a relationship with our neighbors that has formed between town administrators and mayors,” he said. “We need to know each other so that when we have issues, we can work through them together. We are deliberate about knowing each other, and that is something that has changed in just the last decade.

“We realize that a lot of our residents don’t work here, but when they get off that exit, we want them to feel like they are at home. I don’t think we’re ever going to get rid of the commute, but we hope to give people more options. We already have a large segment who work from their homes, which is COVID-driven, and that’s a huge step in that direction.”

Quiet, unpretentious and fully local, New Castle personifies rural western Colorado. Reynolds vows to work to keep it that way. “Our staff is amazing,” he said, “and our mayor and town council take the approach of ‘residents first’ and of maintaining who we are. Change is inevitable, but through that, we’ve got to maintain who we are.”

When coal was king

Almost a century and a half ago, early Anglo settlers discovered New Castle. Prospectors and miners arrived in the early 1880s and found rich coal veins near Elk Creek’s confluence with the Colorado River. The city thrived on mining, and merchants made their livings catering to miners’ needs and desires. As the town grew, there were restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores, opera houses and hotels.

At one point, there were 22 saloons. West of Elk Creek was an area of ill repute discreetly referred to as the “Peach Orchard.”

The founding father of New Castle was Jasper Ward, a freighter and farmer who was one of the town’s first settlers. Ward and his family built a one-room, dirt-floor cabin along the west bank of Elk Creek. The cabin became the town’s first post office and Ward the first postmaster. Ute Indian Chief Colorow was a friend who often visited Ward’s cabin.

Ward later served as the town’s deputy sheriff and, in August 1887, joined a unit of the Colorado National Guard that was intent on warring with some of Colorow’s followers. Ward rode to the scene of the battle with the intention of brokering a peace, but as he rode toward the gathered Utes, a guardsman fired a shot that started the battle. Ward was killed in the melee. He was 37.

First known as Grand Buttes and later Chapman, the town was incorporated as New Castle on Feb. 2, 1888. British coal miners suggested the name in reference to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, an English town noted for its coal mines. The Consolidated Mine operated just west of downtown on Ward’s Peak (now Burning Mountain) and the Vulcan Mine, to the southeast on Roderick’s Ridge, across the Grand River (now the Colorado River).

New Castle became center stage for labor strikes by coal miners in protest against subhuman working conditions in unsafe mines where accidents, many of them crippling or lethal, were commonplace. One strike, in October 1893, targeted the Vulcan Mine for failure to deliver the meager wages on which miners existed. Several safety demands were coupled with the pay grievance. Conditions improved, but at the nearby Consolidated Mine, owned by Colorado Fuel & Iron, miners stayed out for five months.

The long strike strained CF&I, but it hurt the miners more as they survived on scant savings and labor-union allowances. The superintendent had the mine boarded up and threatened to let it fill with water if the miners didn’t capitulate. In time, they did, for a lower wage than before and with less than half the workforce rehired. With this precedent, the Vulcan Mine also lowered its wages to match CF&I.

The United Mine Workers moved in to bolster the rights of the miners and called another strike. This time there was violence. A bridge of the Colorado Midland Railroad was burned to block the threatened arrival of 30 U.S. Marshals called in to quell the strike. This prompted the governor to call up the state militia to protect the trains.

The strike finally ended, but CF&I president John Osgood, the man who had built a model coal mine and coke-oven operation at Redstone, announced that his mine would be closed indefinitely. The Vulcan reopened, but in the aftermath of the strike, the miners eventually reverted to the low pay that had helped initiate the dispute. At that point, CF&I reopened its mine to a more compliant group of workers. By 1896, New Castle held the lion’s share of coal mining in Garfield County, with 287 miners working coal seams.

The Vulcan became notorious for an explosion that ripped through its tunnels on Feb. 18, 1896. Mine timbers were reportedly blown 400 feet from the mouth of the mine and into the Colorado River. Body-recovery efforts took three weeks. The explosion killed 49 men. A total of 37 children lost their fathers that day. The Vulcan was soon closed and flooded.

In 1899, Osgood’s Consolidated Mine caught fire. Despite efforts to douse the fire, it could not be controlled, even after the mine was flooded. Scars from this fire are still visible, and the mine was never reopened. Mining began tapering off due to economic conditions. Still, in 1905, records show that the Colorado Midland Railroad hauled 250 cars filled with coal out of New Castle mines.

During the peak of mining activity in the 1890s, New Castle was home to a population ranging from 1,500 to 2,500. Coal was transported by railway as fuel for the silver smelters in Aspen and Leadville. New Castle businesses included a cannery, a brickyard, a brewery, banks, a cement factory, dance halls, a printing office, saloons, restaurants, three livery stables, two bakeries and several hotels. The town became a small transportation hub with two train depots for the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Colorado Midland.

In 1912, the Vulcan Mine was purchased by a new operator, Rocky Mountain Fuel Co., which started a new tunnel near the original tunnel that still smoldered from the fire that occurred 16 years before. There were rumors among the workers that mine gas was still a problem, but management did nothing to address the issue. On Dec. 18, 1913, residents of New Castle heard “a giant clap of thunder” as the Vulcan exploded a second time.

Rescue was stymied by a massive cave-in, and it was a full day before the rubble was cleared to access the tunnel. All 37 miners in the tunnel were killed, and a long mourning period followed in New Castle. The president of the company arrived the day after the blast and offered surviving families $75 for each victim of the accident to help cover funeral expenses. A subsequent investigation by the state coal mine inspector found fault with Rocky Mountain Fuel, but concluded that $75 was “adequate” compensation for the bereaved.

Four years after that second mass-casualty Vulcan Mine explosion, the Vulcan exacted another human toll: Five men were killed in 1917 while clearing rubble from a cave-in. Shortly after the wagon bearing its grim cargo from Roderick’s Ridge reached New Castle, a violent explosion from the Vulcan shook the earth, reminiscent of earlier blasts. Fire spread along the coal seam, which is still burning today inside what is known as Burning Mountain.

The local economy turned to ranching, agriculture, sawmills and fruit farming. According to the 1900 census, after mining dwindled, the population dropped to 431. For the next seven decades, that population slowly grew to about 600 to 800 residents. In the late 1980s, former ranchland north of downtown was built up into housing developments.

New Castle history remains palpable with signs marking the town’s historic landmarks on 11 downtown buildings designated by the New Castle Historic Preservation Commission. A lifesize memorial statue honoring all miners lost in a decadeslong legacy of tragedy was dedicated in 2004 in Burning Mountain Park on Main Street.

Better jobs, closer to home

On the 7-mile drive from New Castle to Silt, Gresley described how regionalism is creating a powerful synergy for economic development in the region. “The four municipal managers of New Castle, Silt, Rifle and Parachute/Battlement Mesa came together and said, ‘We need a more regional approach,’” she said. “So, they collaborated about two years ago to see how we can move the needle on the mission — better jobs, closer to home. Because, when you have people in your community spending in your community, involved in your community, the community can thrive. How do we make realistic steps toward that?”

The first step, Gresley said, is to make local residents aware of job opportunities closer to home that could alleviate long upvalley commutes, although workers are reluctant to alter habitual patterns or give up wages and benefits. 

“We’re comfortable with what we’ve always known,” Gresley said, “even if that is an hour-and-a-half drive each way. I did it and it became part of my daily life because I had a career and a good salary and great benefits, and I had worked really hard to get that. And there are people who feel quite happy to have an escape by getting on the bus or having that quiet time in their cars. Not everyone is unhappy commuting, but it’s about having the options. There are a lot of businesses here that don’t have the ability to provide certain benefits that bigger companies can do. And that’s something the Economic Development Partnership could do — become a marketplace for insurance benefits and other services.”

Population growth within Colorado River Valley communities has been boosted by the pandemic and regional economics. Between 2010 and 2020, the combined populations of New Castle, Silt, Rifle, Parachute and Battlement Mesa increased 16%, according to census data, while growth remained stagnant in the Roaring Fork Valley (1.4%) despite a growing economy. Housing costs have been increasing regionally, with the median sale price in 2023 reaching $1.9 million in Carbondale and $919,500 in Glenwood Springs, while the Colorado River Valley remains relatively more attainable ($645,000 for a 2023 median sale price in New Castle and $467,000 in Rifle), according to reports published by the Aspen Board of Realtors.

 “We are growing whether we like it or not,” Gresley said, “because the cost of living is pushing people down here.

“Our local town governments are conservative and very wary of making sure we make the right decisions about growth. We are slow-moving and not looking for growth for the sake of growth or to grow to support an industry that isn’t necessarily benefiting our communities,” Gresley said. “On the other end, if you don’t grow, you don’t adapt to conditions. You change or die. I hope to be the connector for that vision to show people the opportunities.”

That’s a tall order for a region that appears to be ripe for development. Yet, as Gresley and other town leaders emphasize, the quality of rural life has become a sacred covenant. Many residents have witnessed growth that has displaced locals, and they don’t want to repeat that here.

“People here basically want a roof over their heads, food on the table, and enough left over to do something they enjoy or spend time with their kids or get their kids into college,” Gresley said. “We don’t need to have all the bells and whistles. It’s a bit more of a simple outlook on life. That’s what makes these communities a little different than Vail and Aspen. No one here really wants to grow to be at that level. We want to keep the identities of our individual towns. We’re taking a regional approach, but every town has its uniqueness.”