Brief by Jan Evans
Real Estate – November 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine
Why settle for a trophy home when you can buy a whole town?
The entire town of Hillside is a recent addition to the real estate market. Nestled along State Highway 69 between Texas Creek and Westcliffe, it lies over nine acres of municipality ready for further development.
The newly renovated U.S. Post Office there includes a homey, cathedral-ceilinged gathering area, loft reading room, one hundred post office boxes and a life-size statue of a cowboy carrying his saddle home after a rough day on the range.
The foundation pad for the grocery store was laid this summer, and building plans to replicate the original store are included.
A recent addition to Hillside is the 2,000 square foot livery building. There’s also a small residence in town as well as an original cabin. The property lies in both Frémont and Custer counties and is zoned commercial. Twenty pairs of phone lines have been installed as has a commercial septic system.
Listing real estate agent, John Watson, said the town comes with “a lot of history.” Hillside was built in the late 1800s when buildings from the Rito Alta Mine in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were moved to the valley floor. The U.S. Post Office was established in 1904.
During the 1930s there were two stores with gas stations in the town. Each store vied for the post office business, and the boxes were moved several times.
When Dan England of Dallas bought Hillside in the mid 90s, he renovated the small store and moved the post office there. England attempted to renovate the large store, but the existing building was substandard, so it was dismantled in 1997.
There are not many opportunities to own a town. Post Office Box 1, Hillside Colorado can be someone’s new address.
–Jan Evans