Brief by Central Staff
Growth – June 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
“It is nuts around here. We have been discovered.” So said Julie Hupper, town manager of Buena Vista, in the April 23 edition of the Denver Post.
She said she’d seen more housing starts in the past 18 months than in the preceding 18 years, with the population rising from 1,752 in 1990 to more than 2,500 today.
Money magazine in 1992 named Buena Vista one of its 10 “hottest vacation home spots,” and a house that went for $110,000 then might fetch $350,000 now.
There aren’t any numbers to indicate whether Salida is getting hit that way, too, but we’ve heard a few Salidans talk about “selling out and moving down to Saguache.” Some have even gone past talk, which makes one wonder about a new pattern of migration:
Californian, despairing at what growth has done to her state, moves to Santa Fé. Santa Fé begins to feel too crowded and glitzy, so a Santa Fé resident discovers that Salida feels as comfortable as the Santa Fé of 1975. The Salidan, perturbed by new water restrictions and parking enforcement, looks for the pleasant, sleepy town he remembers, and ventures to Saguache. Now, when Saguache residents feel pressured, where do they migrate? Is Moffat or Hooper in for a boom?