Colorado Central is a regional monthly magazine founded in 1994 by Martha and Ed Quillen of Salida, Colorado. Mike Rosso, Salida, bought it in 2009 and ran it until selling it in August 2021 to another Salidan, Cailey McDermott. While some things have changed with the newest owner, the initial goal and intent of the publication remains. That goal being to publish an interesting and informative magazine which helps to build a sense of place, a regional community, and a local culture in Central Colorado and the San Luis Valley. We have subscribers throughout Colorado, New Mexico, the U.S. and even overseas. Our magazine is available at retailers throughout Colorado and are listed here. Most of our contributing writers live in Colorado and many are from right here in the Central region and San Luis Valley.
We like good writing about the places we care about, and we’re blessed that there are many good writers, artists and other talented humans in this part of the world.
The best way to understand the magazine is to read it. If you’re in our territory, we have retailers who have copies for sale. A list of distributors can be found here. You can also email coloradocentralmagazine@gmail.com for a free digital edition. OR, even better, you can subscribe. It’s $35/year for print and $25/year for digital.
You can also peruse our archives on the website which date back to 1994. You can find them on the navigation bar to the right.
Most publications in Colorado mountain tourist zones have free distribution, while we charge. It isn’t entirely out of greed. Our theory is that if you have free distribution, then all your income must come from advertisers, and that means their interest has to come first in making publishing decisions. That’s far too much power.
We try for a 50-50 income ratio, so that subscribers’ interests are just as important. The Latin roots of “subscribe” mean “underwrite,” and we like to think of our subscribers as the people who truly “underwrite” this enterprise.
We try not to think of our subscribers as a demographic collection of purchasing habits, so we do not collect such information.