Rifle/Glenwood Springs

Rifle is a home-rule municipality in, and the most populous community of, Garfield County, Colorado, United States. Its population was 10,437 at the 2020 census.^[7] Rifle is a regional center of the cattle-ranching industry located along Interstate 70 and the Colorado River just east of the Roan Plateau, which dominates the western skyline of the town. The town was founded in 1882^[4] by Abram Maxfield, and was incorporated in 1905 along Rifle Creek, near its mouth on the Colorado. The community takes its name from the creek.^[9]

The land on which Rifle resides was once in the heart of the Ute Nation, a classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. The most common tribe in the area were the Tabagauche, who hunted and lived on the land slightly to the east of Rifle in the Roaring Fork Valley. Due to their location, the Tabagauche were somewhat less exposed to White settlers, and to some extent their ways remained less altered than other native peoples. In 1878, Nathan Meeker was appointed as the director of the White River Ute Agency (the town of Meeker 40 miles north of Rifle was named after him). Meeker had no training or knowledge of Ute culture, and launched into a campaign centered on sedentary agriculture and European-American schooling. As this clashed with the culture of the nomadic Utes, he was met with resistance. It all came to a head when Meeker had the pasture and racetrack for the Ute's horses plowed under. The event that followed is known as the Meeker Massacre in 1879, during which Meeker and his 10 employees were killed. The aftermath of the conflict resulted in nearly all members of the Ute nation being forcibly removed from Colorado into eastern Utah, although the federal government had formerly guaranteed them the land on which they were residing.^[10]

Rifle became more and more settled as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. In 1889, the railroad cut through from the east and ended in Rifle for a while before connecting lines were completed. This opened up the floodgates for new travelers, settlers, and trade. Long drives of cattle over the mountains towards the Front Range and Denver became a thing of the past. Rifle was now a thriving hub for commerce. If it needed to be shipped east to a buyer's market, or shipped west into ranching country, it came through the town.

The first major economy known to Rifle was ranching. The land surrounding the town was arid, and much of it was unsuitable for farming without irrigation. Despite the large stretches of land available, tension arose and manifested between those who tended cattle and those who herded sheep. Good grazing practices were not in place, and the summer pastures at the top of the Roan Plateau were contested. One rancher lost two-thirds of his flock and went bankrupt when competing cowboys drove the sheep over the cliff.

Rifle is located in the east portion of the Piceance Basin, which is home to different forms of fossil fuels, the largest quantity of which is oil shale. The unreliability of this fossil fuel has left the city in the throes of a cycling boom-and-bust economy.

As of 2007, an organization called the Campaign to Save Roan Plateau has been engaged in an effort to minimize oil and gas drilling on the top of the Roan Plateau, which locals call the Bookcliffs. The Roan Plateau is accessible from the JQS Trail, located 3 miles (5 km) north of Rifle, or from the Piceance Creek road.^[11]

Rifle is located in the valley of the Colorado River where Rifle Creek joins from the north. Most of the city is on the north side of the river, but some city land lies to the south. Interstate 70 passes through the city along the south side of the river, with access from Exit 90. I-70 leads east 26 miles (42 km) to Glenwood Springs, the Garfield County seat, and southwest 60 miles (97 km) to Grand Junction. U.S. Route 6 runs along the north side of the Colorado River through Rifle, providing a local parallel route to I-70. Colorado State Highway 13 intersects I-70 and US-6, passing through the southern and western parts of Rifle, then leading north 41 miles (66 km) to Meeker.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city of Rifle has a total area of 5.7 square miles (14.7 km²), of which 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²), or 1.18%, is covered by water.^[12]

Glenwood Springs is a home rule municipality and the county seat of Garfield County, Colorado, United States.^[8] According to the 2020 United States census, the city has a population of 9,963.^[6] It is located at the confluence of the Roaring Fork River and the Colorado River, connecting the Roaring Fork Valley and a series of smaller towns on the Colorado River.

Glenwood Springs is known for its hot springs.^[9]

For thousands of years, the area now known as Glenwood Springs has been inhabited by Indigenous people.^[10] The oral history of the Kapuuta and Mouache bands recall that Glenwood Springs is located within the traditional Nuuchiu tuvupu (The People's Land) of the Subuagan and Parianuche bands. Fred Conetah's History of the Northern Utes^[11] states that the Yampa or White River bands used the area, which is now in the Ute ancestral jurisdiction.^[12] The Utes were nomadic hunter-gatherers who seasonally used the natural hot springs in the area. The U.S. government surveyed the land in the mid-19th century, although they had no claim on the land. An 1868 treaty negotiated by the Tabeguache Ute Chief Ouray preserved the hunting grounds in the area of present-day Glenwood Springs.^[13]

Glenwood Springs was originally known as "Defiance" because its original white settlers squatted on the Ute Indian Reservation. Defiance was a camp of tents, saloons, and brothels.

Garfield County was created on February 10, 1883, with Carbonate as the county seat. The mining town of Carbonate was located high in the remote Flat Tops mountains. Isaac Cooper platted a legal settlement named Barlow at the confluence of the Roaring Fork River and the Grand River where Defiance had been, and the Barlow, Colorado, post office opened on June 25, 1883.^[14] Garfield County voters moved the county seat to the much more accessible Barlow later that year.^[15]

Isaac Cooper's wife Sarah had a hard time adjusting to the frontier life and, in an attempt to make her environment somewhat more comfortable, persuaded the founders to change the name of Barlow to Glenwood Springs, after her hometown of Glenwood, Iowa.^[16] The Barlow post office was renamed Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on March 28, 1884,^[14] and the Town of Glenwood Springs was incorporated on September 4, 1885.^[5]

The location of Glenwood Springs, and its railroad stop, established a center of commerce in the area. The city has seen well-known visitors, including President Teddy Roosevelt,^[17][18] who spent a summer vacation living in the historic Hotel Colorado. Doc Holliday, who was known for the O.K. Corral gunfight, spent the final months of his life in Glenwood Springs and is buried in the town's original Pioneer Cemetery above Bennett Avenue. Kid Curry is buried in the same location.

Glenwood Springs was one of the first places in the United States to have electric lights. The original lighting was installed in 1897 inside of the Fairy Caves in Iron Mountain. Later, a dam was built on the Grand River in Glenwood Canyon, providing water for the Shoshone Hydroelectric Generating Station, which began producing power on May 16, 1909. On July 21, 1921, an Act of Congress changed the name of the Grand River to the Colorado River. The Shoshone plant retains some of the largest and oldest water rights on the upper Colorado River,^[19] the "Shoshone Call",^[20] which is valuable for the protection of Colorado River water rather than the minimal electricity produced.^[21]

The serial killer Ted Bundy was imprisoned in the Garfield County Jail until he escaped on the night of December 30, 1977, an escape which went undetected for 17 hours.^[22]

Glenwood Springs is located in the narrow mountain valleys that host the confluence of the Colorado River and the Roaring Fork River. The surrounding terrain is steeply contoured on all sides, containing several caves.^[23] The geology of the area includes geothermal activity, such as the local hot springs, but it is also evidenced through other features such as the Dotsero maar. Occasional proposals to leverage the geothermal energy for other purposes arise.^[24] Glenwood Springs has experienced several mudslides throughout its history, a threat mitigated somewhat by public works.^[25]

Glenwood Springs is considered a walkable town by PBS^[26] and Walking Magazine,^[27] included in the Walking Town Hall of Fame.^[28] Though the town's geography makes it a natural environment for pedestrians and cyclists, there are also trails running throughout^[29] and around the city^[30] that resulted from planning efforts that began in the 1980s in response to congestion and traffic.^[31]

Due to civic planning during the early years of the city, Glenwood Springs owns some senior water rights to tributaries of the Colorado River.^[32] Glenwood Springs water supply is sufficient for its population, unlike some areas of the American West, conservation plans have been enacted anyway for largely environmental reasons.^[33] The town's drinking water is supplied primarily through senior rights to major watersheds in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area, and the tap water is generally of safe quality.^[34]

Mineral deposits exist further up the Crystal River and in the Roaring Fork area, and petroleum resources are ample in western Garfield County,^[35] which brings tax revenue to Glenwood Springs. However, the town itself lies outside of the Colorado Mineral Belt, and there are no mineral or oil and gas sources near Glenwood Springs proper or its watersheds.^[35] While the paucity of minerals and oil was disastrous for early miners hoping to strike it rich, modern Glenwood Springs has none of the typical Colorado mountain town legacy of resource extraction,^[36] generally good air quality,^[37] water, and land.^[38] However, valley inversions and heavy traffic to Aspen can lead to air quality problems during exceptionally cold spells of winter.

At the 2020 United States census, the city had a total area of 3,740 acres (15.136 km²), including 5.4 acres (0.022 km²) of water.^[6]