Nucla nuclear? (Pueblo, Grand Junction, Durango: houses, unemployment, casinos)

[jadybug]

I just responded to an old post about the best and worst places to live in Colorado. That brought a memory of a trip my husband and I made to Nucla, CO (see old post for reason we went).

Anyone know why it is like it is? Looked like a scene right out of, "The Day After." S-C-A-R-Y!! I felt bad for the tiny, secluded town.

Anyone have any info?

[jazzlover]

Replied here:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/color...-place-co.html

[jadybug]

"I'm just an old cowboy from High Colorado..." Not really, but despite my Conservative Christian leanings, not big into judging/forming an opinion one way or another on atomic energy. Just wondered if that had anything to do with the town's lack of pep.

I'm a Bleeding Heart Conservative-BIG SMILE!

[Sockeye]

Nucla is home to one of the most wholesome outdoor experiences a family could want - The Annual Prairie Dog Shoot. Great way to keep your eyes sharp in the offseason.

[jadybug]

That has to be a joke!! I did smile, although I'm a girly girl-Dr. Doolittle-type and couldn't participate in such!! My husband loves to hunt though...

[Sockeye]

They still have it, though shooters are limited to five of them, because animal rights groups back in '97 protested.

[Jerkstore]

Nucla had a great thing going until the PETA freaks stepped in. The only good prairie dawg is a dead one. Endangered my arse!

Never been to Nucla, but sorry I missed out on some great 'red mist' action...things like that can bring a little chunk of revenue/revival to the area.

[jadybug]

You know I really do think God knew what He was doing when he created all living things. We all can be pests at some point-right?

Hunting is just part of the plan after the "Fall." A by-product of sin-if ya will. You know, a necessity. Over population can cause so many issues. But wiping a creature completely off the planet was not at all what our Creator had in mind-at least that is my worthless opinion. Moderation is the name of the game!! BIG GRIN!!!!!!!

[DOUBLE H]

I know a few people in the Nucla area. The old saying of desperate people doing desperate things applies here. Union Carbide operated a uranium processing plant there for many years and a large portion of the people who worked there, and the surrounding mines, lived in Nucla and Naturita, 8 miles south of there. When operations shut down for good there in the early 80's, the area never recovered. Double digit unemployment occurred and stayed that way for many, many years. Try living in an area that is 2 hours west of Montrose, 2 hours south of Grand Junction, and 2 hours north of Cortez. where you have one huge employer who put people to work for decades, only to shut down their operations, dismantle the plant, and leave the area.

When you are drawing unemployment, you have one option. Sell your house, and leave town. Why? No jobs, no future, no hope. The natives of that area call themselves the west end for a reason. They have looked down upon by everyone in the state long before the prairie dog shoot got started. Why? I honestly believe it was because of the plant and its involvement in the war effort in the 40's. I may be off base on this, but I'll tell you what. Several years back there was a movement going on that that of Montrose County wanted nothing to do with Montrose and secede from the county itself, and wanted to start its own.

Jazzlover, I may need your help on this next item. If memory serves, in the 1980's, during the vote to allow casinos to be built, to allow a state lottery to come in, Nucla and Trinidad also petitioned to have casinos built in their towns and they were turned down flat to have gaming houses. Trinidad was facing its own set of problems with the closing of CF&I in Pueblo and the surrounding area. And the Nucla/Naturita area is looked down upon to this day. Uravan is in the top 5 on the hit pararde for superfund cleanup. And the treatment of those workers who worked those mines and at the Union Carbide plant who were filled up with black lung and other related diseases is disgusting. The claims get delayed, they die penniless and the paperwork gets shuffled. I worked out at the Flats for several years; I know something about that stuff with my own experiences.

Is the area depressing? You bet it is. That's why the prairie dog shoot got organized, the area residents done whatever they could to build up the area. They knew it was only a quick fix. They knew it wasn't politically correct. They needed help as much as any town in Colorado needed help. Montrose couldn't help, and the State wouldn'thelp. The prairie shoot finally ended some years ago, but the townspeople did not give one whit what anybody else thought. Why would they? All of the hoity toity set from Ouray to Durango and Telluride have been looking at the area in scorn and have for decades.

[jazzlover]

Double H is right--Nucla has been a hard luck place. Nucla never was much, until the uranium boom came. Then it boomed--I was first there right when the boom was starting to wane. Nucla is a great example of what happens when a boom goes bust. Of course, the people who were there when it was booming thought it would go on forever, but it didn't. Just like the boom in gas won't go on forever. More importantly, just like the boom in second homes, ski areas, and resorts won't go on forever. They are cut from the same "get-rich-quick" exploitive cloth that the silver boom, the gold boom, and the energy boom were and are. And they will come to the same inglorious end. Colorado's boom/bust economy just can't seem to break that mold.