By Alan Robinson
Readers of this magazine may recall the September 2008 article on “The Stage Road from Canon City to Leadville.” There I summarized the history of that 1870s passenger, mail and freight route, and 1880 construction of the long-abandoned Colorado Midland Railroad (CMRR) through Chaffee and Lake Counties. I also asked rhetorically if in today’s environment, where preservation of our area’s cultural heritage is increasingly recognized as important for both social and economic reasons, there might be an opportunity to develop a long-distance public heritage trail along those routes. The initial vision was to connect Buena Vista and southern Lake County with a slow-speed pathway of about 30 miles – some sections for vehicle travel, some for hikers, cyclists and horseback riders – which would celebrate the stories of those two routes, stimulate preservation of their deteriorating physical features, interpret their history to strengthen the public’s appreciation of their value, and in some cases, make sections now inaccessible open to public use.
