La Juanta - good and bad (Pueblo, Ordway: crime, house, contractor)

[ioneoskay]

Want to move to the La Juanta area. What areas around there are good and which are bad (drugs-gangs ect). Anything else we need to know

[sunsprit]

This is an agricultural/ranching based area of Colorado on the high prairie about 70 miles east of Pueblo. For a Colorado area, it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, although it's winter may be shorter than the areas closer to the mountains and further North.

If you look at a map, you'll see that this region of Colorado is very sparsely populated. There's many hundreds of square miles without a town.

I think one of the bigger regional employers is the Ordway prison.

Due to the extended drought and almost no industrial base in the area, it's pretty depressed, economically. Irrigation water has been scarce; when I fly over here, I can see who had enough water to run their pivot and get a crop, and ... more commonly, who didn't. I was there last October, and they were still not finished cutting hay in the area because it was still so warm.

The good news is that land is cheap right now. If you're retiring, that might be a big benefit. It's along the Arkansas river and close by John Martin resevoir, boating and fishing areas. There is a golf course in LaJunta. Electricity costs among the lowest in the region.

The bad news is that the're aren't a lot of local jobs, or ones that pay well.
You'll be looking West for jobs, and that can be a rather daunting commute in the winter months. LaJunta downtown is rather run down and has a lot of vacant buildings. The counties down here are the poorest in Colorado.

I have friends who just bought 40 acres a little closer to Pueblo along Hwy 50 and are dealing with building a retirement home there. It's been a struggle to get the well "witched" and drilled. They foresee labor/contractor issues in trying to stick build a house, so are having a custom "factory built pre-fab" log house trucked in to go on concrete piers. They believe it will be easier to get a crew onsite to erect that house in a few days and they'll finish interior themselves, living in their 28' 5th wheel trailer on site.

It's an area with a rich hispanic history.

I don't know about the current drug/crime scene, suggest you contact the local deputy sheriff's dept for this.