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I just graduated with a teaching degree and have an interview coming up at the middle school in Cortez CO.
Anyone have thoughts on the middle school in that area? Looking at the moving there from Central IL, seems the house prices are a lot higher in CO then where I am currently. Our budget is 140,000 and from the looks of it that will get a shack or some decent land (with no house).
Anyways what's the area like over there? nearest towns (with population 30-50,000)
It's still pretty early in the process, just wanting to get an idea if its the right place for my family.
Here's our page on Cortez, CO, with pix. Small town. Few jobs. Isolated. Hardscrabble. Nearest "large" towns are Durango, CO (a pricey retirement town) which is 45 miles and Farmington, NM which is 73 miles. Best of luck to you.
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As Mike said, Cortez is VERY isolated, moreso than almost any town on the Colorado Western Slope. Farmington is an hour away but the only reason I would go there when I was living in Durango is if I wanted to have a nice dinner at Red Lobster or Outback. You would be about 4 hours from Albuquerque, and a solid 6-1/2 to 7 hours from either Denver, Phoenix, or Salt Lake. I'm not sure where exactly you are in Central IL, but I wouldn't think you're more than a few hours from either Chicago, Indianapolis, or St. Louis.
Cortez is very laid-back but I don't think it would be my type of town. Just my opinion, though.
As you may know—or would certainly quickly find out—Cortez is geographically and climatically quite dissimilar from central Illinois. If maybe what you are after. It is more a desert climate; the far more lush San Juan mountains lie not far to the north, but are not adjacent.
Responses thus far are basically accurate. Within Cortez you'll enjoy sufficient basic necessities in services. And in a town that is small enough to soon know and possibly feel comfortable in. It is isolated from other major population centers. That appreciably larger would be Farmington, NM or Durango, CO. Farmington is more a working town, if the largest in the region and enough so to offer the best range of services outside of distant Albuquerque. ABQ is your best bet for city life, as not only closer than Denver but with easier access. Durango is an attractive if expensive place. For a pleasant something other and recreation near it, a good choice to visit.
A quick glance reveals that $140,000 will afford something modest but decent in Cortez in single family housing. No idea how this compares to Illinois, if real estate in Colorado is often dear in price, even far from truly costly mountain resort property.
A definite plus—and reason why so many favor Colorado—is that from Cortez one will have relatively easy access to many fine outdoor recreation opportunities.
I wanted to write a description of the place where I live - the middle of nowhere, yet the entryway into a whole different world. My region of the US is a cipher in both senses of the term. You think it's nothing, but once you break the cipher, you discover it's everything.
Hadn't checked in on the board recently until just now. So what would you like to know about Cortez, my friend? Colorado Rambler knows all and sees all! And if you believe that, boy do I have a vacant lot in Cortez to sell you.
Cortez is a cipher in both meanings of the world. You drive past town on Highway 491/old Highway 666 and see little more than a dusty little desert town with an amazing number of clunky billboards alongside the outskirts, advertizing everything from health care for uranium miners sickened by radiation illness to nightly rates for motels long gone out of business. The weary traveler can scarcely be blamed if she decides to keep going toward Canyonlands or Mesa Verde NP, leaving the presumed non-entity of the town of Cortez behind without so much as a second thought... But then there's the other meaning of cipher - "a key (or cryptovariable as our friends at NSA would say) to an algorithmic code... Without knowledge of the key, it should be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to decrypt the resulting ciphertext into readable plaintext." (Wikipedia)
It's true that Cortez is hard-pressed by both the local economy and the drought which has SW Colorado, (along with California and much of New Mexico) in its unrelenting grip. The educational system in Cortez lags behind that of many if not most other Colorado towns. In a recent election, local voters did agree to the construction of a new high school, but whether the educational substance will be congruent with the shiny new structural form remains to be seen. There are fewer good jobs here than there are in other places in Colorado and high school graduates with any ambition at all usually end up leaving this area.
It is ironic that some of the biggest, best paying companies here - those involved in carbon based energy production - seldom hire from the local area. For example, Kinder Morgan, a prime player in the local energy production game, comes complete with its own crews already hired in places like Farmington, NM or elsewhere in the “Oil Patch.” I was amused when the Cortez paper ran a headline stating that KM would be pumping some 37 million into Montezuma County through "capitol expansion." Curious, I checked out KM's official website to see if this "capitol expansion" actually translated into local jobs as the Journal implied. Sure enough, KM had job openings in Cortez - two of them. The only other town in Colorado where KM was hiring was Colorado Springs where there were 11 vacancies waiting to be filled. (Update: I checked the KM website again tonight and 3 vacancies in Durango – La Plata County, NOT Montezuma had been added).
This practice of importing workers from outside the region has artificially skewed the local housing market. Housing here has suddenly started going at a premium, and you don’t necessarily get what you’ve paid for. After all, the boom in CO2 pipeline construction will only last for so long and the inevitable bust is sure to follow at some unspecified time in the future. But for right now, rentals are getting more expensive by the day as locals are pushed out by energy company employees with fat per diem checks and relocation allowances. It got so bad a few weeks ago that Craigslist was the site of a spontaneous renters’ rebellion centered around the town of Durango and the Four Corners in general. People were posting faux ads for tool sheds available in Durango for a mere $100,000/month – no students; no smokers (of either kind); background check and credit check required plus first, last, and damage deposit – a bargain of a move-in price at $300,000! Alas, someone at Craigslist finally noticed what was going on and removed all the ersatz ads.
One might wish to brush aside the energy company exploits as temporary aberrations except for one thing: Cortez and Montezuma County live and die by the tourist. Yet, KM and others have managed to gain permission to drill and build pipelines on all the public lands around here. Seduced by a siren’s song of more jobs (those 2 in Cortez and don’t forget the 3 in Durango), the BLM has sold out parts of Canyon of the Ancients National Monument to KM and the Forest Service has followed suit by allowing KM access to a part of the San Juan National Forest known as “The Glade,” a place one local writer described as having “... a remoteness woven into the country there that is a variation on wilderness.”* But who needs reminders of wilderness when one can go after an entire National Park? Another energy company (not KM) has been given permits which will allow it to commence fracking operations on the eastern boundary of Mesa Verde NP. The former Superintendent of Mesa Verde made no secret of his outrage, but the current supervisor, no doubt with his eye on his government pension check, said the impact would be negligible. Right.
If, Dear Reader, the above has left you with strong feelings of antipathy regarding Cortez, you can scarcely be blamed. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss Cortez out of hand without subjecting it to deeper scrutiny – without applying the cryptovariable that unlocks the puzzle. Cortez is dead center in the middle of some of the most drop dead beautiful country that the West has to offer. If you take a 20 minute drive on Highway 145 up to Dolores, you’ll find yourself at the gateway to the San Juans. The land grows ever more spectacular and more rugged with every mile. There are many Forest Service roads leading off to wonderful places where the wild things are and more. One of my favorite camping spots is off of an old logging road on a ridge that overlooks the West Dolores River far below. It’s about a half hour drive and a few variations on empty spaces from where I live and I’ve yet to encounter another soul there, no matter how long I stay or how often I come. If it’s in the spring or fall the vast expanses of Utah from Island in the Sky NP to Zion and everything in between calls out for a journey, if not an extended stay. I may one day leave this country behind me, but I will leave the better part of my heart along with it if I do.
The town of Cortez itself is a pleasant surprise for those brave enough to explore the streets behind all those bill boards. It’s a slice of small town America at its best with well tended homes, many of which feature xeriscaping far prettier than any regulation lawn and which imbues a stronger sense of place than you’d ever imagine. The center of town is covered by a series of open, green parks, including a large pond where water birds of every kind can be found shamelessly begging for bread, no matter what the season. There are the usual football and soccer fields and a modern and well kept rec center with very reasonable membership fees and if you can’t afford even that low cost, the rec center will give you a “scholarship.” The town library is centered in the middle of an open space of its own and manages to maintain quite a remarkable collection of books and all the other materials libraries are charged with providing the public these days. Cortez has so many parks and open places that this little town has even managed to set aside a dog park that would be the pride of a much larger place. From the dog park, if you stop and look around, you will notice that you and your dog are surrounded by beauty, walking in beauty with the La Plata’s to the west, the San Juans to the north, Lone Cone is northwest of the San Juans and the Manti La Sals and the Abajos Mountains over in Utah all seem to float on the distant horizon. What lucky dogs frequent the Cortez dog park!
Naturally, we have our “historic” area which is comprised of the fine old homes and trees that make up the broad Montezuma Avenue district – very similar to the old Wood Avenue neighborhood in Colorado Springs. On Christmas Eve Montezuma Avenue is lined for blocks and blocks with REAL lumenarios – none of those fake plastic things for us! We even have a bit of culture when we can manage it – perhaps the Symphony from Farmington will come up for a performance or a troupe of Chinese acrobats manage a mysterious appearance all the way from somewhere not here and we manage to have our very own birding festival each spring. Finally, if the visitor grows weary of the big city lights, she can always travel out of town in most any direction for just a few miles. The road through near-by McElmo Canyon leads to a surprisingly good local winery and the vast irrigated alfalfa and hay fields in Montezuma Valley south of town make one feel that one has landed in the middle of a lush and beautiful oasis – which of course is just what it is.
So what is Cortez REALLY like? I guess it’s all in the cybertext.
andstuff has visited since she got the first responses. I hope she comes back to see Colorado Rambler's response and maybe have some reply / dialogue if she wants it.
Bottom line, visit before you commit and talk to as many other teachers in person or by phone as you can / think is helpful.
A lot depends on how outgoing and / or self-sufficient you are outside work.
Cortez is a very small, isolated, and poor town in the middle of the desert.
Durango is a medium sized town about 45 minutes drive away.
two completely different cultures and environments, these two places.
Oh, man, you have no idea! Cortez is like something out of Stephen King. Sudden dust storms sweep in from the Utah desert all the time. People go missing for days and livestock, trapped beneath massive sand dunes, become mummified. Ranchers dig them out as they can to make those beef jerky sticks with.
Known members of the Navajo Mafia have started hanging around certain bars in town. Word on the street has it that they're planning a major cocaine smuggling operation, forcing bricks of the stuff down the mouths of their sheep (which as you know have SEVEN stomachs) and thus foiling law enforcement's attempts at interdiction (Is it behind stomach no. 2? No? How about 3?)
Hardly anyone in Cortez has a job. People here mostly live by their wits which is kind of spooky since anyone with the wit to leave made their escape years ago - even before jazzlover got out. That leaves us with the Republicans. They manage to get by on government handouts like grazing permits that go for about 10 cents/head for cattle. Sheep get even cheaper grazing permits unless they're Navajo sheep in which case you either keep them on the rez where they die for lack of water due to the drought or else you teach them the brick eating trick. Local Republicans also survive by using government issued water stamps. These work sort of like food stamps, only they're for people descended from pioneers instead of people descended from Welfare Queens. If you have pedigreed water stamps, you can have all the water you want and, except for industrial hemp, use it to grow anything you feel like even if it's something really stupid to grow in a desert like alfalfa.
If you are traveling in this area, the wise tourist knows that one of the main drags, Highway 491, was originally named Highway 666 and for good reason. Think about it. Do you really want to visit a town which gets its water from the River of Sorrow (the Dolores)? There's even a near-by town also named "Sorrow" and it's just a mere 10 or 15 minute drive from what we desert rats laughingly call downtown Cortez. Durango is even worse. Its water comes from the Animas River - short in Spanish for the River of Lost Souls. And if you're the type who likes to really push their luck, keep on going north on Highway 666 (AKA "The Devil's Paintbrush Road") and take the turn for the forlorn little town of Egnar - gateway to the Disappointment Valley.
Don't go any further than Durango, folks. You'll end up as just another statistic in Steve's next novel if you do.
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If Cortez
Cortez - the Good, the Bad, and the Mystery
