No way out: Rural Colorado is outvoted at every turn
By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice
Tom Harrington manages a 500-cow operation on the Crystal River Ranch, two miles from the town of Carbondale on a mesa west of town.
He grew up in Ridgway.
A friend sent him some papers from the North Park area of Walden showing the school news, a note from the old folks' home and local ads. "I looked through these papers and I thought, man, this is like the 70s in Ridgway," he said. Those things have disappeared from the Carbondale he lives in now. "They've certainly left here."
He has also watched the valley floor transform in his 18 years on the ranch, hayfields replaced by a shopping complex and apartment buildings, the quiet gone with it. "Once things are paved over," he said, "they never come back....

