Imagining an Oasis

For Walsenburg, a small park could lead to a greener life.
Oasis Body Image 1
Artist Kenny Martinez created this iconic poster showcasing the area’s Spanish Peaks.

In the heart of Walsenburg, as the Spanish Peaks loom to the south and La Veta Pass beckons to the west, there is a bend in the road well known to cars as they pass on through to the glorious Rockies.

The trick for this small town now is to make the bend in the road a little more welcoming to humans, as both a destination and a pause on a longer walking journey.

“They want a visual speed bump,” said Cindy Campbell, a local LiveWell coordinator working with town leaders on a plan for a dusty, sun-baked former parking lot sitting at the spiritual core of a scrappy community.

The scorched parcel at 6th and Main streets has now become a rallying point for both economic development interests in Walsenburg and the burgeoning healthy places movement. What if the town could transform the rectangle of dust into an oasis for both passing drivers and town pedestrians? Activating the space – and cooling it off with some desperately-needed summer shade – could get people out of their cars, but also get residents out of their storefronts and homes on a longer ramble to the courthouse and a bigger park up Main Street.

“It’s kind of cool because we come at it from different perspectives,” said LiveWell’s Campbell. The town leaders “are primarily concerned about economic development. And I am primarily concerned about healthy eating and living. But our roles cross with this pocket park.”

Their focus is on a literal, not just metaphorical, pivot point. The spot where Main Street, better known to outsiders as Highway 160, turns west toward the mountains and north toward Pueblo, is passed by hundreds of  thousands of cars in a summer. The drivers are usually intent on speeding toward the Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Durango, Taos or the bustling Front Range cities to the north.

“It used to be a small mom and pop grocery until it burned,” said Gaye Davis, a grant writer for local schools and a member of Walsenburg’s economic development leadership. “It’s so central to the entire community.”

The partners worked with the state Department of Local Affairs to find design money, then brought in the University of Colorado Denver architecture school for technical assistance. UCD’s Jeffrey Wood brought a team of students down to Walsenburg for everything from resident interviews to a scan of local history. Surveys were included in town utility bills asking more questions about what residents wanted to see in the popular space.

Walsenburg is rich in mining history, and residents still feel close to it. In another town park sits a sculpture of the “miner’s tags,” the identifiers the diggers would hang around their necks as they went down in the shaft, then hang back up when they came out safely. History buffs still visit to touch the ground of the Ludlow Massacre, when about two dozen miners, women and children were killed during a 1914 strike as state troops and company goons attacked a protest camp.

Early design ideas include: a pocket park with mining ore carts as planters; and mine shaft elements such as miner’s tags embedded in the sidewalks to lead walkers toward the main city park. Walsenburg experimented with a farmers market on the site and found much more shade was needed on summer days that can easily reach 100 degrees.

Residents have liked what they’ve seen so far from UCD, Campbell and Davis said. They have been burned in the past, though – a sculpture out on busy I-25 meant to represent the iconic Spanish Peaks looked more like a dinosaur and a boondoggle. UCD and the students have worked hard to avoid “the dinosaur problem,” officials said.

Locals have also seen a lot of promising studies “sit on the shelf” without ever coming to life. In this case, there are real drawings they like, and a fundraising plan with reachable cost goals, Campbell said.

“It’s about developing the momentum for the park and that sense of community ownership,” Campbell said. “And once it’s developed, people walk there and buy fruits and veggies and go on historic walking tours that can originate from that park.”

 

This article was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of Health Elevations.

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