Like Bobby over at
Tulsa Topics, the wife and I just got back from Colorado, we however stayed mostly on the western side around Durango, Silverton and Ouray, then came across the state to Colorado Springs on the way home. As is most of the case I cant help but draw some parallels between other cities and Tulsa. We talked to many wonderful people, some were native, some were visitors from Oklahoma, and some had their roots in Tulsa.
This however is a tale of three of those cities, and what we can learn from others. Those cities are Silverton, Telluride, and Cripple Creek.
Silverton is an old mining town turned tourist attraction. Every day between Late May and early October a steam powered narrow gauge rail trains bring people to town for a few hours to shop, eat and to look at the old buildings, or you can stay over night and take the next train back. Silverton for the most part is stuck in the past, in a good way, they have held onto their history and capitalized on it in such a way that this town of 500 residents gets the benefits of well over 300,000 visitors a year. Silverton is not without its problems however. We got into a long discussion with a local concerning coding (in a round about way) Silverton has no building codes, anyone can build anything they want anywhere they want. So surrounding the buildings made in the late 1800s there are modern log cabins with gigantic windows, and unfortunately a Cinder Block house. They aren’t saying they don’t want new buildings, they just want them to fit in. Each time this issue is brought up detractors turn around and complain that they wont be able to paint their house/building whatever color they want, which is not even the issue.
Lesson for Tulsa? Learn from, hold onto and profit your past (Route 66, Native American Heritage, Oil, Religion)
Telluride is another old mining town, turned ski resort. From what we could tell of our short visit, apart from a few markers and the safe that Butch Cassidy stole from, they would like to forget their past. There are condos everywhere, most look like the “log cabin” mentioned above. They only allow a 3% growth in new construction each year, as a way to keep the town “Small and Quaint”. From my understanding the Bluegrass festival that they were known for has been in decline for many years because the locals don’t like “that crowd”. Apart from Skiing, Telluride doesn’t have much to offer a visitors.
Lesson for Tulsa? Same as above, but add that control of the city needs to be pried away from those with selfish motives.
Cripple Creek is, yes, another mining town turned gambling mecca. Most of the buildings date in the early 1890s, and most of the buildings now house casinos, 18 to be exact. We didn’t get an exact count but there were only about 10 non casinos on main street, and some of those shops were run by the casinos. I will give the casinos credit they try to keep the “look” of the old town, some new buildings have been built to blend in with the old since some have been destroyed over time. Apart from gambling very little goes on, the casinos are full, the shops are empty, or even closed. Cripple Creek is truly a casino based economy, and it appears very hard to succeed at anything else there.
Lesson for Tulsa (and Oklahoma in general)? Gambling is not the answer, it may appear like a benefit at first until is sucks the money out of the rest of the economy.
A few other observations from my trip:
1) Texas, New Mexico, Colorado & Kansas all have much nicer rest areas that Oklahoma
2) Texas, New Mexico, Colorado & Kansas all have something other than plain old bridges, some have nice etchings in them to make the more attractive. and dont get me started on the quality of the roads themselves.
3) The Native Americans in New Mexico and Colorado seem proud of their heritage, everywhere you look there is something made by them, they aren’t know for just their smoke shops and casinos.
